Undeniable but Unallowable
by classic99lady00
Summary: "Paris is driving me f***ing crazy." "Careful, Barton. You've just revealed your location. You sure this line is secure?" He was silent for a moment. "You're in Paris, Nat?"
1. Chapter One

**ISOLATION ~ JOHN LENNON**

…

Hawkeye stood at his room's balcony, staring out over the slow-moving street corner. The summer night in Paris was warmer than most would be, the lights bright, the atmosphere calm. Couples strolled down the quiet streets, while a string of musicians played romantically on the sidewalks. A small restaurant on the corner perforated the air with delicious smells. The Eiffel Tower glowed, statuesque in the distance.

All of it made Clint want to rip his hair out. He had a corner of a beautiful city to _live _in. He did things without a hidden agenda, without reporting to someone. He had the time to meet _normal_ people, for Christ's sake.

All was not right in Agent Barton's world.

It was all just so goddamn _peaceful. _He was 'taking a break,' Fury's words, not his. It'd been a relief right after Manhattan, but it'd been months since then. This was what he fought for, though. This is what he bloodied and bruised and broke his body for, what he stressed over for years and years on end. _Peace_. But, God, did it drive him crazy to live in it.

Clint sighed and leaned on the wrought-iron railing, clenching it in his fists. He had to do something to fix his mood. If he didn't find a solution soon, he'd end up doing something foolish, reckless, and potentially compromising.

He resisted the immature urge to repeatedly bang his forehead on the railing, walking back into to his room to find the stash of cigarettes he kept handy.

* * *

Natasha bent down to check her target's pulse and then zip-tie the woman's bloodied hands together. Then she moved the unconscious blond informant to a sitting position behind a stack of crates.

Clearing her throat, Natasha put a hand to her earpiece and spoke: "Target in custody."

She straightened, looking out over the street. As far as she could tell, no one had seen the takedown. The alley and street beyond were deserted; no windows were in the buildings on either side.

S.H.I.E.L.D. answered through her earpiece quietly. "Roger that. Transport is en-route."

Natasha readjusted her black leather jacket around her shoulders, peeled her fingerless gloves off, and leaned back against the brick wall, watching the alley entrance. She felt good.

Paris really was beautiful at this time of year. Her job had gone well and if her calculations were correct, she'd have some time off to spend; all that was missing from the picture was a bottle of vodka and a rooftop.

Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived by car a few minutes after she'd called it in.

One of the agents quickly debriefed Natasha, writing everything down on the tablet in his hand. Then the other agent presented her with a small black bag, complete with Stark Inc. cellphone and false identification.

"You will be contacted in a week's time with an update, unless there is anything that requires your attention earlier," the first agent explained. "The Commander sends his regards."

"Thanks," Natasha nodded and pulled the bag's strap over her head, across her body. Without another word, she turned and began walking.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. car slipped away, driving in the opposite direction.

Natasha strolled through the slow, easy streets. She couldn't remember the last time she'd _strolled_ anywhere. Well, without faking it to deceive a target, that is. She actually paused outside a well-lit restaurant, listening to the slow jazz music traveling from the speakers to the tables outside. A couple was sitting at a table, comfortable and quiet and unsuspicious.

Something about this peaceful part of the world had her feeling sleepy, made her want to slow down for a few precious days, even if a part of her would never relax completely. The image of a rooftop and bottle of vodka returned.

She needed to find a liquor store.

* * *

Clint took a long pull from his fifth cigarette of the night and exhaled the smoke slowly, slumping against the balcony rail. The nicotine did nothing to calm his agitation, but it did help him clear his head.

A sudden burst of laughter from below made him look around; a couple of American tourists, college girls by the looks of them, sat under the restaurant's canopy. Clint chuckled sardonically, shaking his head as he took another drag from his cigarette; some Americans were so fucking loud, it was almost embarrassing.

With his eyesight, watching people was easy to do, a "hobby." Hobby wasn't a good description. It was more of a job that wormed its way into everything else in his life. He didn't even know if he liked doing it; he just did it.

Clint turned his attention to the other people along the streets. A restaurant cook leaned heavily against an alley wall, bottle in hand; from his posture, Clint knew the cook wasn't a slacker by nature, merely stressed. A violinist stood at the other corner, playing slow love ballads; she swayed and leaned with the music, but the expression on her face suggested boredom and frustration, possibly at the lack of recognition for her skill. A head of red hair caught his eye in the dim light of a street lamp. Clint watched as the redheaded woman walked quickly down the street away from him, her high-heels wobbling on the cobbled street; late for a fancy evening somewhere, judging by the dress and up-do.

Even if he didn't know Natasha from a mile away, he'd know that wasn't her down there; Natasha didn't wobble. The woman was a damn cat. He'd watched her run full-tilt across a three-inch wide railing once.

Feelings of nostalgia suddenly flooded him, catching him off guard. Another reason Fury should stop fucking around and declare his 'vacation' officially over...


	2. Chapter Two

THREE DAYS GRACE ~ BROKEN GLASS

…

**Natalia Romanova.**

**According to her file, she'd been trained as an asset to an underground Russian organization called Red Room. There were no specifics what their objectives or methods were, though, judging by what S.H.I.E.L.D. did have, Romanova had been a favorite of Red Room's.**

**But she'd disappeared a couple years ago. Even her handlers didn't know where she was. U.S. Intel assumed her last mission had gone badly and she'd been killed.**

**Then a year ago, certain intelligence agencies had linked the name "Black Widow" to her photo when they intercepted an underground request for an assassin. Romanova had reappeared, and apparently, she was free-lancing.**

**This hadn't been something to be worried about at first. But Romanova had proved to be very masterful, very resourceful, and very hard to keep track of. Plus, she didn't seem to have any kind of code… at all. No rule she wouldn't break, no place she wouldn't infiltrate, and no person she wouldn't kill. Sometimes, she didn't even ask for payment.**

**She was a loose canon and she made Hawkeye's superiors nervous.**

**So now, 2 a.m. Rome, Clint soundlessly ran across the slanting rooftops, keeping his eye on the street. He caught sight of a couple climbing into a car, but the female was clearly too tall to be Romanova.**

**Fighting to keep quiet, he hurried along.**

**At first, he'd been a little annoyed that S.H.I.E.L.D had sent him to do the busy work, but now he realized that it was a form of flattery. No one could run across rooftops quite like him. Clint smiled to himself as he leapt over a particularly wide alleyway and hit the roofing tiles running.**

**He almost didn't see the black shadow slip around the back of a three-story house across the street. Clint skidded to a stop and knelt in the shadows of a chimney. He allowed himself a quick glance down the street to double-check, but then he was as motionless as the wall beside him, watching the house. Most of the windows were uncovered, but there were rooms out of sight, with windows around back or on the side. Clint wished, not for the first time, for x-ray vision. That would be truly invaluable.**

**A redheaded shadow appeared on the second floor, climbing in through a window. "I have visual." He slowly notched an armor-piercing arrow and aimed.**

**Maranico, the 'leading operative' for the mission, came on the radio, "Take her out."**

**Clint's mouth twitched. _No shit._ He relaxed his fingers around the bow, touching the corner of his mouth with the arrow. She was moving slowly, but he'd have to aim carefully to avoid snagging on curtains or other such objects. Her pale neck was illuminated by the dim streetlights, a perfect target...**

**She disappeared through a door, moving deeper into the house.**

**"Damn it," Clint murmured and put the arrow back in his quiver. "She was too quick. I'll have to go in."**

**"No." It was still Maranico. "You've done what you can. We're sending in the Black Ops."**

**Clint grimaced and pulled his bow over his head, across his chest. "Negative. She'll be gone by then and your boys aren't equipped for a chase."**

**"Barton, she's dangerous..."**

**"I'm fully aware of that, sir." Clint dropped down from the rooftop, landing neatly on a shed then rebounding onto the alley floor silently.**

**"Don't be a smart-ass, Barton. This is our best chance to overwhelm..."**

**"I'll take care of it, sir." Clint glanced up and down the street for civilians.**

**"Now is not the time to get cocky. Stand down, Barton, that's an order..."**

**Clint yanked the earpiece out of his ear, tucked it in a pocket, and then stealthily ran across the road.**

**In the past, he'd just followed commands and let the 'big guys' decide, but Maranico was a moron. He'd become overly confident in their brute force, the heavily armored men straight off the military camps. But Clint was going to take his chances, in order to get this job done without the mess that accompanied the Black Ops.**

**It didn't hurt that Romanova was another spy, an equal; he'd like to see how well he held up against her. He risked his life too often to get caught up by the very real possibility that she could kill him.**

**Clint made it across the street and into the shadow of the house in less than six seconds. It took only three seconds to scale the side of the house to the second floor where he'd last seen Romanova. Softening his breathing, he loosened his knife and notched another armor-piercing arrow, then moved forward.**

**He couldn't hear anything besides his shallow heartbeat. He didn't expect to hear Romanova, but he listened as intently as he watched. He slipped through the door into an empty hallway. He quickly turned in every direction, aiming his bow wherever his eyes went.**

**The house had been boarded up, all the furniture covered in linen, dusty.**

**Why the hell would Romanova come here?**

**Every door in the hall was shut, except one, and a telltale swipe of dust was missing from the floor there.**

**He relaxed his bow and silently made his way over to it, ready to fire at any moment, breathing slowly through his nose. He didn't waste any time; as soon as he reached the door, he put his back to it and pushed it open while simultaneously barging into the windowless room.**

**Even as Clint's eyes found her crouched by a large desk, Romanova stood and launched herself toward him. Clint loosed his arrow, but she was close enough to fuck up his deadly aim with a side-sweeping blow. He swung at her head with his heavy bow. She dodged and struck at his chest and he deflected her quick jabs without thought.**

**She must've realized that he was her equal in hand-to-hand because she ducked and made to slip around him out the door. Clint grabbed the back of her uniform and pulled her toward him, hoping to throw her off balance. It worked, but she used it to her advantage; she leaned into him, forcing his back into the door jam, and then hooked her arm around his leg.**

**Clint realized what she was planning half a millisecond before she did it. She lifted him slightly and twisted, attempting to throw him down to the floor, but Clint had a hold of her, so she went with him.**

**They landed on the floor heavily and she didn't pause for an instant. Her kicks and jabs had Clint in full panic mode for a few thorny moments, but instinct took control of his movements and he quickly had the upper-hand; he landed a few punches to her abdomen and face before she rolled away and attempted to flee.**

**He sat up quickly and grabbed the belt around her waist, yanking her back. She landed on her ass right between his legs, throwing her head back. Clint easily foresaw this, dodged it, and wrapped an arm around her neck, both of his legs on top of hers, and the other arm around her waist.**

**Romanova's hand was between his forearm and her neck, giving her just enough room to breathe, but not enough to move. Clint began to prepare for a deadlock; the big boys would get here in a…**

**Pain lanced up his leg, beginning just above his knee.**

**He yelled and instinctively thrashed, but his grip didn't loosen. He still had one of her hands pinned, the one keeping him from choking her, but her other hand was free from the elbow down...**

**She twisted the knife in his flesh, making him yell again and shudder in pain. Then she threw his arms from her, rolling away as quickly as she could.**

**Clint pulled his gun then. "Don't move," he growled, using both hands to aim the gun at her.**

**Romanova froze on her hands and knees, her head down.**

**Clint stood, never taking his eyes off of her, and ripped his own knife out of his leg with a small breath of relief. A quick look at the wound told him that he wouldn't die of blood-loss just yet; the stab was targeted for pain, not his demise, which made him wonder.**

**Clint didn't allow himself to get confident, keeping his distance from her, watching every one of her breaths cautiously. His brain was on a very highly suspicious level, even for a spy of his caliber.**

**He wasn't accustomed to having expectations, but he'd somehow expected more of her, and that gave him pause. Granted, she'd hit him a few more times than he liked. And she was silent, hadn't made one sound through the whole encounter. She was really tiny too. He hadn't noticed before.**

**"Look at me," he said, the words sounding softer than an order but too stern to be ignored.**

**Romanova slowly tilted her head up, her face becoming illuminated to him.**

**He'd seen her picture in the file, but it was here in person that it really hit him how cruelly young she was. How did someone start this business so young? She couldn't be out of her teens yet, and her file had said she'd been active in the field for years. He didn't want to know how old she was.**

**Clint's jaw clenched. "Get up," he ordered, gesturing with his gun. "Slowly."**

**Romanova didn't move at first, her face a stone mask. He wondered what she was thinking, what she expected him to do, what she was planning. He couldn't read her non-expressions.**

**When Clint purposefully shifted his weight, pretending impatience, she made her decision and made to stand. Her movements were slow, like he'd ordered, and incomparably smooth. Her eyes never left his and she kept her hands out in front of her for him to see. Smart.**

**"Are you here to kill me?" Romanova asked as she finished standing. She had a slight Russian accent.**

**Clint's nostrils flared. "Yes."**

**Romanova's face was still impassive, absolutely blank. She didn't move, seemed to hardly even breath. Unnerving, which was undoubtedly the intention.**

**Time was ticking. Clint needed to hurry and make the decision.**

**Clint's eyebrows pulled together as he stared at her. What decision was there to be made? His mission was to take Romanova out, make sure she wasn't a problem...**

**But she was way too young, so much younger than he'd been when he'd started his own career. Clint didn't consider himself a philosopher, but… something about this was off.**

**He stared at her, torn. Romanova's wide green eyes were hard and emotionless, and the corners of her sweet, full mouth were pulled down. Her deep-red curls were messy, working in harmony with her face to create the image of a beautiful, furious, caged animal; an animal beaten so much that she didn't even know her life had any worth.**

**"Fuck," he spat angrily.**

**He knew that now he'd made the decision, he'd stick to it, even knowing he could be making a fool of himself. Quite possibly a dead fool. Damn him.**

**"Turn around," he ordered to the Russian, his gun steady.**

**Finally, Romanova's face cracked and her eyes narrowed minutely. "Why?" she asked.**

**Clint stepped toward her menacingly, gun still trained on her forehead, and repeated himself, "Turn the fuck around."**

**She complied slowly. He could guess she was criticizing him. What did she think he was doing?**

**Clint holstered his gun and pulled out his handcuffs. There was every chance she could fight just as well when cuffed.**

**He was a goddamn idiot.**

**He stepped forward and pulled her hands behind her. "I don't carry the keys on me, so don't get any ideas," he said gruffly. "You so much as move the wrong way…"**

**"What are you doing?" she asked tonelessly as the cuffs closed around her limp wrists.**

**Clint turned her around to face him, incensed that he still couldn't make heads-or-tales of her emotions. "The people I work for want you dead. They sent me to kill you and I could've done it just now," he said.**

**He paused to let that sink in, watching her pupils widen minutely at his words. He hoped that meant that she was surprised, maybe even grateful.**

**"But you're not going to," she said, still without emotion.**

**This was it. He needed to commit, either way.**

**"No," he shook his head. "I'm not."**

**Romanova stared at him silently. He thought he saw her eyebrow twitch.**

**"If you want to live, you do what I say," Clint said firmly, walking over to where he'd dropped his bow, taking the earpiece out of his pocket and putting it in his ear. Instantly, he knew exactly where the 'big boys' were and how frighteningly close they were to being ready. "Got that?"**

**Romanova nodded, but Clint wasn't buying.**

**"I know you've been trained, but you don't stand a chance without me. They want you dead at all costs and I can tell you for a fact that I'm the only that will help you."**

**Romanova hesitated, and then nodded again, slowly this time.**

**He still wasn't convinced, but it'd have to do.**

* * *

**The archer had decided not to kill her. There was every possibility that he was lying… but why go through that if he didn't have to? What could he be playing at? What was his plan?**

**"Come on," he said, grabbing her upper arm, and pulled her towards the door.**

**Natalia stopped him, leaning back.**

**The archer looked ready to strangle her and then shoot himself with that ridiculous bow of his. "Look, we have less than 4 minutes before U.S. Black Ops storm-and-torch this place…" he began to say.**

**Natalia shook her head, and then nodded toward the only other door in the room. "That way."**

**The archer stared at her for a second but began pulling her towards the door.**

**How had he ever made it as a spy if he was this trusting?**

**He put her in the corner before nocking an arrow, kicking the door in, and then he moved into the hallway, checking left and right. Natalia stepped into the doorway expectantly and waited for him. He appeared again and seized her arm, pulling her along next to him to the back staircase.**

**Did he know how predictably he was acting?**

**As they slipped silently down the stairs, Natalia's hands were a work behind her, using a special-made instrument to unlock American-styled handcuffs. She had to be careful to not be too distracted with the task that she missed a step… or more importantly, a cue to act.**

**"Let's get out of here," the archer stated unnecessarily as he sped toward the open back door, tugging her along.**

**Two shadows on either side of the door came alive as the archer made to walk past them. Natalia watched as they quickly took hold of the archer, removing his bow from his hands and pinning his bare arms behind him. The man struggled, but not nearly as hard as Natalia knew he could've.**

**Curious.**

**A third shadow walked to Natalia, turning his face to her with a smile. "_Good work, Black Widow_," Agent Ventimala said in Portuguese. "_I'm sure he will be most useful_." He walked over to the archer, pulled the communication device out of their captive's ear, and threw it to ground to crush it with his boot.**

**Natalia merely stared at the archer. He didn't have the best of poker faces, by far… if Natalia were to believe that his emotions were real. He was looking at Agent Ventimala, his jaw clenched and his eyes intense, his lips turned down… Natalia guessed it was anger directed at himself, which would make sense… but maybe…**

**"_Take him to the car_," Ventimala said.**

**The men began dragging the archer out the door. The archer was making a show of looking defeated, struggling but stumbling when his captors turned him around.**

**"_Wait," _Natalia said in Portuguese, so that everyone could understand.**

**All the men stopped and looked at her.**

**Natalia had a decision to make in very little time. She didn't have to worry whether she'd live, either way… at least for the immediate future… but it was a decision that involved trust, however minutely, if she chose one way; regret if she chose the other…. What it came down to was what she would want to live with for the rest of her life.**

**Natalia looked at Ventimala. "_He has the keys to the cuffs._"**

**The archer looked at her discreetly through his eyelashes, impressively keeping the emotions on his face angry and defeated. She could see the question in his eyes though.**

**Ventimala went to the archer, patting down his pockets. When he couldn't find them immediately, the others began looking for the keys as well. They were all completely distracted.**

**The archer was watching Natalia over Ventimala's shoulder, and she could practically feel his curiosity.**

**With a flash, Natalia threw a knife into the neck of one of the men holding the archer, who fell with a shout.**

**Immediately, the archer flew into action. He put Ventimala on his knees before Natalia was even within striking distance and the last man was against the wall, the archer's fist crushing his windpipe.**

**Natalia wrapped her hand around Ventimala's jaw and twisted firmly so that she heard the telltale crack, just as the archer dropped his bloodied, unmoving victim to the floor.**

**Natalia made quick work of the handcuffs still dangling from her right wrist and watched the archer hurriedly step over a body to reclaim his bow and quickly look it over. When he looked up at her, his face was business-like as if he'd never doubted her actions.**

**She felt her eyebrows crick upwards, which only made the archer raise his and then check the watch on his wrist.**

**"Two minutes. Should we get out of here, or what?" he asked, gesturing to the door behind him.**

* * *

**"What the _fuck_ were you thinking, Barton?" Commander Fury asked, leaning over his desk as he stared at the immobile agent across from him. Fury's voice was in its most dangerous tone; not yelling by any means, but very intense.**

**Hawkeye had his hands clasped behind his back as a sign of respect to the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, trying to show docility. He really would take any help he could get at the moment. "To be honest, sir, I wasn't thinking beyond the situation at hand," he answered.**

**"Which was?" the Commander asked, his voice still dangerous.**

**Clint smiled and twitched his head to the side in amusement, "Keeping the Russian in sight at all times, sir."**

**Commander Fury sighed resignedly, looking down at his hands. "Not only did you directly disobey your commanding officer, you brought an extremely dangerous individual straight into the heart of this organization. Now I have half a mind to put your sorry ass on probation…"**

**Fury watched for a reaction, but if he'd expected one, he would be sorely disappointed. Clint didn't even blink at the words, staring at the wall behind Fury.**

**"But…" Fury continued, straightening, "seeing as how Romanoff has been cooperative and we currently have need of your expertise, I've decided to overlook your damn fuck-up for the time being."**

**Clint's mouth cricked into a lopsided smile. He nodded, "Thank you, sir."**

**Fury sat down, saying, "See Agent Hill for your assignment details."**

**Clint nodded again, "Will do, sir. But uh… if it wouldn't be too much to ask, sir… just how long you do think it will take before the Widow talks?"**

**Fury just leaned back in his chair and stared at Clint with his one good eye, betraying absolutely no emotion whatsoever.**

**Clint smirked down at his shoes for a moment; he silently wondered how long Fury would wait until he allowed Clint to talk to her.**

**Hawkeye saluted the Commander and left the room.**


	3. Chapter Three

**NORAH JONES ~ BROKEN**

**…**

When Natasha finally checked her watch, she could see she'd been sitting on the roof for hours. She sighed, figuring she'd better find where she should stay for the next week; then she could finish the vodka. Only just starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, she got to her feet and stowed the vodka in her bag as she headed for the rooftop stairs.

Her bag started vibrating just as she got back onto the street. She found the sleek, black piece of technology within the first five rings and put it to her ear, not even bothering to read the caller ID. It'd be blocked, as always.

"Romanoff," she answered solemnly.

_"Relax, Tash, it's me."_

"Hey, Barton." She'd temporarily forgotten about him, what with the missions and the vodka, and she didn't feel all that bad about it.

_"You expecting a call from Fury soon?_"

"Not unless he's made a mess of things, which doesn't happen too often."

Clint was quiet for a moment. _"Are you drunk?" _he asked, unbelieving.

Natasha knew she wasn't anywhere close to drunk. But she supposed she did sound a little too happy for midnight. Although, only someone like Clint would be able to tell.

"Don't sound so surprised, Barton," she finally answered.

_"Oh, I have the right to be. It takes a lot to get you drunk."_

"I guess you have a point," she conceded. "How's your 'vacation' going?" she asked, remembering what Hill had told her a month ago about his leave of absence.

_"You see, that's the thing," _Clint said. _"I don't even remember asking for the days off."_

"Strange," Natasha smirked.

_"I know. Must've been my good behavior."_

"Not likely. Fury hates your behavior."

Clint laughed wordlessly.

Natasha could hear the edge in his voice, the strain to keep talking lightly. Despite her self-induced indifference towards others, she couldn't help being a little worried about his state of mind. Loki had really done a number on him, she knew.

"Keeping busy?" she asked casually.

Reality colored his tone, finally._ "To be honest, Tash, I'm going batshit crazy. I've got to get the hell out of Paris."_

"Careful, Barton," Natasha said, flipping her lengthening hair out of her face as she checked a street sign with a flick of her eyes. "You just revealed you're location. You sure this line is secure?" You wouldn't be able to tell from her tone that she was teasing.

Clint was silent for a moment. _"You're in Paris?"_

Natasha smiled to herself. "For now," she answered as she walked through a door, nodding to the security guard on duty.

* * *

Clint knew what _that_ meant. "You on duty?" He flicked his dead cigarette into the ashtray across the room with the accuracy akin only to him.

_"Not since a few hours ago."_

The irritation in his chest flamed. He could've easily been on that mission; Fury was a fucking bastard.

Clint chewed on the inside of his cheek and exhaled roughly through his nose. "How'd it go?"

_"Mission accomplished."_

He coughed a laugh. "Don't know why I asked." He could barely remember the last time Tasha had failed a task, back when she was the new agent on the American block.

Talking with Natasha was… dare he say it… fun. Even when they were talking about absolutely dead fucking serious shit, with business faces and folded arms, he felt… _relaxed. _Her deep-yet-feminine voice somehow calmed the riot that was his head better than nicotine.

_"You smoking again?" _Natasha suddenly asked. She asked like she knew.

Clint shook his head. Natasha's intuition was uncanny. "No."

He'd decided to lie. But he wouldn't admit it was because he feared her reaction to the truth.

_"I'll kick your ass if you're lying to me right now_," Natasha warned, partially commanding and partially joking. The commanding part was dominant.

Clint laughed.

_"I've done it before, Barton." _She thought he didn't believe she could. "_And this time, I'd go for your throat with my knife."_

Clint knew she would. And could. "Yeah, well, I learn from my mistakes," he answered confidently, folding his arm across his chest. "You might not get lucky again."

_"Oh, I don't attribute it to luck," _Natasha said. _"We may train equally as hard, but what it comes down to is talent."_

"I've got talent," Clint said, one of his eyebrows raised.

_"Not where it counts," _Natasha said. He could hear the smile in her voice, the closest she got to laughter… Clint could only remember that happening once since he met her.

Clint grinned but his tone was serious, "You know the only way to settle this is with a rematch, right?"

_"Of course."_

Clint didn't get a chance to say anything else as someone knocked on his door.

Instantly, his 'cabin-fever' kicked him into overdrive. People didn't fucking knock on his door. No one had a reason to visit him.

Clint shut the phone off without a sound and tossed it onto the bed he'd been sitting on.

He stalked to the door, pulling the handgun from his waistband as he went and holding it out in front of him. He grimaced at the aging white door as he made some quick calculations.

His best option was to open the door. He put the gun behind his back and stood at an angle by the wall. It anticipated a forced entry by putting him out of the direct line of fire, and it prepared for the possibility that it was just a civilian.

The knocking came again. Physically, he didn't even twitch, but he felt his stomach jump with anticipation. Inhaling deep through his nose, he rearranged his expression to innocent, questioning surprise, his eyebrows raised and his mouth turned down slightly.

Clint opened the door as casually as he could, his prepared statement flying from his mouth, "Yeah?"

His body froze in shock, but his eyes were scanning every inch of the woman standing at his door, scanning her figure for a flaw to prove this was some kind of ruse. Flaming red hair, just starting to grow past her shoulders, endless curves, pouting lips, wide calculating green eyes, creamy complexion, clean, practical, and wearing black.

It was Natasha alright, and she was exactly the same as when he'd seen her last, right down to the leather jacket.

She held up a bottle of liquor, smirking crookedly as she asked in perfect French, "_Tu veux te joindre à moi_?"

* * *

Clint was different. It was a subtle difference, but Natasha could see the change, even if she didn't know what it was.

She quickly swept her gaze down his figure, trying to pin down what it was. Short-ish, wild, honey-blond hair, sharp blue eyes, expressive forehead, severe mouth, hard cut body under the drab sweater. His appearance wasn't changed, not even his style. But where was the difference?

Natasha lifted the vodka bottle in a friendly gesture, asking, "_Care to join me_?"

Finally, he cracked a smile and answered in the same language. "_Absolument_!"

Natasha grinned and pushed passed him into his room.

Though Clint had been living in the single-room apartment for more than a month, it was still as spotless and generic as a hotel room. Not even his bow and quiver were anywhere in sight; if he were ever inclined to be lax, those objects would most definitely be laying out. There were cigarette butts in the ashtray. Natasha's mouth twitched, but she wouldn't point it out just yet.

Natasha turned and watched Clint tuck the handgun back into a drawer. "You really have gone to batshit, haven't you?" she asked, the merest hint of a laugh in her tone. "Were you expecting someone?"

Clint rolled his eyes and smiled but he didn't answer the jibe. "You always knew I was here, didn't you?" he asked as he walked toward her.

Natasha nodded, "Been keeping tabs on everyone since we split up in Manhattan."

Clint's eyebrows tilted in one of his truly Clint-ish expressions, "Should I be flattered or worried?"

Natasha merely pursed her mouth into a chastising smirk and turned away to set her bag on the bed. She thrust the liquor toward Clint and shook it until he took it from her, then she stripped off her jacket, revealing her plain black tank top.

"So," Natasha said, rolling her head and bare shoulders until they cracked, "what's there to do around here?"

Clint gave her another one of his _looks_. "Tasha. Considering what we do for a living, there's _nothing_ to do around here."

"Except for what you haven't done..." she smiled.

Clint snorted. "So what do you suggest?"

Natasha took the vodka back from him and tilted some down her throat before answering, "When's the last time you got drunk in Paris?"

Clint raised his eyebrows, smiling smugly as she pushed the bottle back into his hand. She knew how adverse he was to drinking alone; he didn't trust bartenders, or himself for that matter. And if she guessed right, he'd been alone for a while.

Clint took a swig of the liquor. Natasha watched with humor as his eyes widened and he swallowed with difficulty. "Jesus, Tash, what are you drinking?" he asked when he'd finally got it down.

Natasha grabbed the bottle and lifted it to her lips. "_We _are drinking vodka. Or the closest I could find in France. And by the looks of it, you've been lacking alcohol the last couple weeks."

"Hell, yeah," he nodded and held his hand out for the bottle again.


	4. Chapter Four

BLUE FOUNDATION ~ EYES ON FIRE

…

**Natalia was bored with the new interrogator, but it didn't show. Nothing showed. She made sure of that. It'd been a complete week of passive silence for her, and she didn't see it going anywhere. At least they fed her well.**

**The young man sitting across from her was, by all means, professional. He didn't get angry or flustered. He asked the questions calmly, told her different parts of her life as if she needed a recap, showed her the pictures of the surveillance they had on her. Everything was by the books and would probably work on someone less trained than the Black Widow.**

**The thing was, Natalia didn't know why she just sat here, being bored. She didn't want to accept that it might be her curiosity that kept her here, but she didn't have any other excuses. She'd have a hell of a time trying to get out of the base, but it was habit now to believe that it didn't matter if she could survive and succeed as well. She _could_ just talk; tell them whatever they wanted to hear, even if most of it wouldn't be the truth. It might even give her an opportunity to find out more of what she wanted about this organization and its agents. But talking felt too much like being broken, being weak.**

**And so, here she sat, hands cuffed to a chain looped through a ring in the floor, staring at the junior agent patiently trying to get under her skin.**

**The door opened unexpectedly; no one had interrupted the interrogations before now.**

**Natalia turned to see a plain-faced man in a business suit standing in the door. He looked altogether unimpressive and unintimidating, which made him very interesting.**

**"I'll take it from here, Ramirez," the man said, nodding to the agent who'd been interrogating her for the better part of the day.**

**Ramirez stood and saluted to the newcomer, leaving quickly and shutting the door behind him.**

**"So. The Black Widow," the man said conversationally, sitting where Ramirez used to be. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time." He threaded his fingers together and set his hands on the table between them, staring at her with dispassionate eyes and a half-smile. "Why do you think you are here?"**

**Natalia didn't move. She didn't look it, but she was apprehensive about a man who looked like an American high school teacher, but worked for an agency like this one.**

**The man's facial expressions didn't change, much like her own, though his looked a lot more relaxed. "Well, in the most literal sense, you're here because Agent Barton brought you in…" the man said.**

**At the revelation of the archer's name, Natalia had involuntarily breathed in too quickly. She knew that the man had seen it, even if he didn't react.**

**He went on, "But what I want to know is… why _you_ think you're here, in this room?"**

**Natalia continued to stare at him, watching his unmoving face carefully.**

**And he stared back. He didn't even seem slightly uncomfortable, and he was dangerously close to making Natalia respect him.**

**But not close enough to make her answer his questions.**

**The man must've seen this in her posture because his smile grew a little. "You know, you're nothing special to an organization like ours. Of course, you don't really think you're special either. I'm not saying that. But I'm telling you this because… the reason we keep you here is because we can't really decide on what to do with you." His eyes became distinctly harder-looking. "The cheapest thing to do is just put a bullet in your head like originally planned and be done with you. The more time-consuming option is to force hallucinogens into your system and see what we could get out of your babbling."**

**Somehow, his whole appearance had changed from simple-minded to clever without any expression or posture shifts. Natalia felt that she might actually talk with him if she wasn't so curious as to what he would say next… which was a very different problem from before.**

**The man was still smiling. "But then I think about the fact that you're even here at all. I know about the Brazilians at the house in Rome, and regardless of anything else, you're a powerful force to be reckoned with on the field. You would've had no problem getting away from our agents. And yet…" he shrugged, "you're here. You wouldn't be here if you really didn't want to."**

**The man moved his folded hands from the table to his lap, leaning back in his chair. "I'm here to give you a choice, and you should know that you'll be on a high priority list, whether you choose to cooperate or not."**

**Natalia hesitated, then blinked twice to show that she was listening.**

**"I am aware of your current personal dilemmas," the man said calmly.**

**Natalia flinched, the chains rattling slightly. It was the biggest reaction they'd seen since she'd been here.**

**The man continued to smile kindly, knowingly. "It makes you angry that someone would think you have a weakness of any kind… and if you're going to be part of this organization, you're going to have to fix it."**

**Natalia stopped breathing.**

**"Listen to me…" the agent leaned forward again. Of course he was an agent; he couldn't be anything else. "There are a limited number of people here who know exactly what you were put through in Red Room, and I'm one of them. I won't pretend to know what you're problems are… but I know that you have them and that they can't be part of a healthy mindset."**

**Natalia refused to look away from him.**

**"S.H.I.E.L.D. is willing to pay for any kind of treatment necessary to get you fully functioning and independent. And I can say without a doubt that we can do it. We specialize in creating forces of revolution, people that can transform the way the public views the world, destroying the old ways of thinking and building something better. You could say that we create heroes, as silly as it may sound to someone like you."**

**Natalia held his pale blue gaze as he paused.**

**"And so, I put the question to you, Natalia."**

**He was talking to Natalia specifically. She wondered if he knew Natalia and the Black Widow weren't the same person in her head.**

**"If you could live your life over, knowing exactly what you've become now," he was speaking very carefully, making sure she thought about it, "would you choose to become something better?"**

**Natalia stared.**

**The agent smiled simply, and stood. "When you have an answer, ask for Agent Coulson. I'll never be very far away."**

* * *

**Fury tried to keep him busy, but Hawkeye always knew what was happening. He never asked, never drew attention to himself, but he always knew, which was why he was invaluable to S.H.I.E.L.D. and also a great liability. His capabilities during an investigation were basically legend in the spy world, at least when he set his mind to it. That meant if S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't keep updating their secrecy protocols, Clint Barton could know things well above his clearance level. He sometimes considered it a curse, but mostly it was a well-earned gift.**

**After her talk with Coulson, the Black Widow had apparently lost some of her iciness, but she still wasn't talking. Not a sound, according to one of her interrogators. They might as well be questioning a vegetable with a face that could kill with one look. Some thought (correctly, Clint could say) that the Commander was hoping to make her an agent; she had come in willingly, after all. But it'd been weeks without so much as a sneeze from her. That window of hope was closing fast. She wasn't being useful and nothing was being done about her. She was simply there, taking up a high-security holding cell. And now the question was on everybody's mind: Why was she still here?**

**Clint wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to know just why she'd helped him out with those Brazilians, because she must've known he'd been planning his attack; she could've easily foiled it or just ran away and left him to it.**

**He wanted to know why she wasn't attempting escape or even pitching a fit, because he had a feeling she could pitch quite the fastball at the amateurs in the room with her.**

**He wanted to know if her decision to come here had anything to do with him or if he was just being arrogant. Because there was no way in hell he could've dragged her all the way from Rome to S.H.E.I.L.D. headquarters without her consent.**

**It was a week and a half after Coulson's offer to Romanoff that Agent Hill came up behind Clint when he was eating in the mess hall, alone at his table in a murmuring crowd of agents.**

**"Agent Barton," Hill said, making him turn to look over his shoulder in acknowledgement. "The Commander wants to see you," she stated clearly.**

**Clint didn't get up. "Where?"**

**"Interrogation. Now_," _Hill added when Clint made no move, stressing the word the way only she knew how without any change in tone.**

**Clint smirked and stood, "Yes, ma'am."**

**"Don't call me 'ma'am,' Agent Barton. I'm younger than you," she reminded him stoically before striding off.**

**Clint just continued to smile.**

**A few of the other agents had glanced up at the exchange, but everyone knew curiosity was pointless in this place, so they went back to their own meals and conversations.**

**Clint went straight to the interrogation room, finding the Commander standing next to the Glass Box, which the blank-faced Black Widow was currently sitting alone in. A few workers sat at monitors off to one side. A couple agents were going over notes with Coulson in a corner. Romanova wouldn't be able to see anyone outside the Glass Box; the glass would look like walls from her side of things. Clint knew from experience.**

**"Barton, get over here," Fury called impatiently.**

**"Yes, Commander."**

**Fury frowned as Clint stood at attention in front of him with respectful, almost too-calm eyes. "You're going in, Barton. We'd like the Black Widow on our team if at all possible, so… try not to be too much of an annoying asshole," Fury said, his face set in his trademark scowl.**

**So Clint still wasn't forgiven, huh?**

**"I'll do my best, sir," Clint said, smiling as he moved passed the Commander towards Coulson.**

**Fury's eye narrowed as he murmured, "Yes, you're doing a hell of job already."**

**Clint heard him, of course.**

**"Agent Barton," Coulson said, "glad you could make it."**

**Clint nodded in greeting. "Anything specific you want?"**

**Coulson shook his head, "No script. Just be careful how much information you give her. She's sharper than any tack I've ever sat on."**

**Clint smirked, "I think I've got it. Thanks, Coulson." He clapped Coulson on the shoulder and opened the door into the fake hallway leading up to the Glass Box.**

* * *

**Natalia had to practically stop breathing to force back her yawn. If they were trying to crack her with some form of a boredom technique, they were getting dangerously close to succeeding. This was something new to her - being absolutely unresponsive. It wasn't like anything that she'd been trained for. But she was doing it; quite well, if she said so herself. She just didn't know how much longer she wanted to do it.**

**The door opened quietly.**

**Natalia saw from the corner of her eye that it was a man. The way he was built and the way he held himself told her much more than that.**

**So they were switching to this technique, were they? Torture was much less boring, but had a shorter time limit. She needed to rethink her objective here… Damn it, she needed to _find_ an objective.**

**"Hey," the man finally said.**

**Natalia whipped her head around.**

**It wasthe archer.**

**He smiled at her and moved to the table. When he grabbed the whole table and shoved it towards the wall, Natalia straightened up, moving her legs out of the way. She even realized she was doing it, too. She didn't know why she'd given up the 'statue routine' though.**

**Coulson had said his name was Barton, she remembered.**

**Barton moved the other chair up right in front of hers and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his head barely three feet from her.**

**Strategy played havoc on Natalia's thoughts; from this position, she could easily incapacitate him with one or two well placed kicks to his head; she could wrap the chain or a leg around his neck in seconds; she could even head-butt him if she wanted to be flashy.**

**So _why_ the hell would he sit like that?**

**He waited. Staring at her. He scratched his forehead, he rubbed his chin, he shifted his feet, all completely obvious moves. They both knew he didn't feel the need to do all these things. The actions made him look too normal.**

**And finally, Natalia talked. "Why didn't you kill me?"**

**She had no idea why it was so easy now. All of the shit telling her to not talk was instantaneously gone. It felt as if… it _wasn't _weakness to talk to him… There was no way she was _ever_ going to analyze that.**

**Barton simply answered her, "I made a different call."**

**Not even close to the kind of answer she wanted. "Why?"**

**He exhaled roughly, "Because I'm cursed with a fucking sense of honor. At least, that's the best answer I could come up with."**

**Natalia stared at him. She might need to brush up on her English, because it sounded like he said the word '_honor_.' What would possibly be dishonorable about killing someone like her? She wondered if she should be insulted.**

**"Now I have a question for you," he said, pointing at her.**

**Natalia was immediately put on her guard.**

**Barton must've seen this, but the idiot leaned even closer to her before asking the question, "Why'd you help me?"**

**She notably frowned.**

**"You knew I could have handled those three. You had a good read on my skills. I would've gotten away at least. Even if _you_ decided to chase me. So why'd you help me?"**

**Natalia shook her head, "I don't know."**

**"Not good enough," he said calmly.**

**Natalia's eyes narrowed slightly. Barton didn't seem intimidated though. So she told him the first legitimate thing that came to mind. "I didn't want to owe you anything."**

**One of Barton's eyebrows rose, making his forehead crease.**

**Why didn't he believe her? Sure, she didn't believe herself either, but she'd been lying professionally since she was seven years old. She _should_ be able to convince him that the sky was blood red.**

**Natasha shifted under Barton's solid gaze. Why was she uncomfortable?Why was it hard to lie to him? What made him any different from the others? Men like him were a dime a dozen around here.**

**"Fine," she said tersely after a moment. "Helping you was the only way I'd be able to ask you questions later. I knew I'd regret not knowing why you didn't try to kill me."**

**Barton chuckled, "Believe me. 'Try' is exactly what I did. I just didn't succeed."**

**Natalia didn't reply.**

**"Anymore questions?" Barton asked, lifting his palms in question.**

**Natalia stared at him, "Why didn't you kill me?"**

**Barton's eyebrows came down over his eyes and he tilted his head. "Didn't we already do this?"**

**"You said you have a sense of honor. Not why you didn't kill me," she explained.**

**Barton reached up to scratch his head, looking at the ground. "You're really gonna make me say it, aren't you?"**

**Natalia didn't answer.**

**"Alright, fine," he said, slapping his hands down on his legs. "I saw how young you were."**

**Natalia saw red. "What does my age have to do with this?" she hissed.**

**If Barton was concerned by how angry she sounded, he didn't show it. "Don't get all huffy, Romanova, I know you're tough and dangerous and all that shit… but you're… Christ, you're still just a kid!"**

**Natalia looked down at her hands and saw that she'd clenched them; with a little effort, she was able to relax them.**

**"Look," he leaned forward again, "you're good at what you do. There's no doubt in my mind that you could kick my ass from here to Florida and then anywhere else on the planet."**

**Natalia inhaled deeply, trying to get her heart rate back to normal speeds.**

**"Look at me." The memory of when he'd said that last time was strong behind her eyes. This time, though, his voice was soft… almost tender… Damn him.**

**Natalia looked up slowly, hesitantly, and felt her heart thump hard once before she could get it under control again. Barton's dark blue eyes were electric with intensity, barely a foot and a half from hers. He didn't try to touch her.**

**"When you looked at me, back in that house," he said quietly, roughly, "you looked as if you didn't care if you lived. You fucking looked like you didn't even want to. People aren't supposed to look like that when they haven't even been allowed to live yet!"**

**Natalia was finding it hard to breath now. This was worse than torture. This was playing with her head… making her feel scared for the first time in years…**

**"I couldn't kill you," Barton looked down at his feet, "and I couldn't just leave you either. So I cuffed you and decided to bring you back with me. I wanted to give you your choices back."**

**Natalia felt the ground sway.**

**Danger. His words screamed danger.**

**"Natalia."**

**She visibly jumped when he said her name. Memories of another man saying her name the same way he just did… The memories made her melt inside her skin and want to be violently sick at the same time.**

**She shook her head violently, blinking the images away.**

**"What's wrong?" Barton whispered, not seeming to really expect an answer.**

**Natalia bit down on her tongue, swallowing her bile. She couldn't be this weak… she needed to push all of this down, no matter how Barton's words made her feel.**

**She finally looked at him again.**

**And she couldn't look away.**

**He didn't look pitying. He didn't look sad. He didn't look angry. He just looked... like he knew. "Why did you come here?" he asked, his sharp eyes unwavering.**

**They stared at each other for so long, Natalia began to fear for her soul, the soul that the devil had played with all of her life. She could feel it quaking in her body, shivering against every part of her, as if it wanted to leave her… leave her and be with _him._**

**She violently shoved those thoughts away, and focused on the question he asked. It was obvious that she couldn't lie to him in the current situation, whatever the reason was. So she needed to tell him.**

**"I wanted to…" Natalia finally said, her voice practically gone. "I wanted to trust you… because…"**

**He didn't interrupt her, but he wouldn't let her look away either. He still expected an answer.**

**"Because it seemed like you were trusting me."**

**Barton smiled at her, a warm smile that seemed to come from his eyes.**

**She hated that she'd made someone smile like that.**


	5. Chapter Five

**FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE ~ KISS WITH A FIST**

**…**

The woman's fist slammed into the wall where the man's face had been milliseconds ago, creating a black hole in the drywall.

"Admit it," he slurred behind her. "I've gotten better."

She turned to face him, fists loosely held up in front of her. He was standing defensively, but he had a stupid grin on his face.

"Maybe a little," she conceded, and attacked again.

Their friendly sparring was becoming spirited; he'd thrown her to the floor quite a few times and one of her kicks had sent him crashing through a nightstand, reducing it to firewood. They always gave each other enough room to back away when drawing blood was imminent.

After a particularly intricate bout of jabs and deflections, the man leapt away and rolled over the top of the bed, giving them a much-needed moment.

They stared at each other from opposite side of the bed, breathing hard, watching every move warily.

The woman smiled and said, "Come on. All I'm getting from you is defense. Let's see what else you got." She did a handspring over the bed, an empty vodka bottle rolling around on the sheets, and landed in front of him.

His smirk returned behind his raised hands. "Careful what you wish for, sweetheart."

She a smiled dangerously at the pet name, "Quit talking, asshole," and she lunged at him.


	6. Chapter Six

PRODIGY ~ HOT RIDE

…

**Clint wasn't Clint at the moment. He wasn't even Hawkeye.**

**No, right now, he was Danny Best, from Chicago. Danny liked who he was and didn't expect to change anytime soon. He had a wicked sense of loyalty, which practically guaranteed that he would gain friends, and he was clever, but not spy material of course. Like many men in his trade, he had a temper that got in the way sometimes, and he wasn't known to be a family man. But all other things set aside: Danny was a damn good racer.**

**Danny had been drag racing since he could reach the gas pedal. He knew through experience what a car could or couldn't do and he knew what a man behind the wheel of another car would expect him to do. He was so good in the fast lane that it was rumored that he could get a team into an armored truck and away with the goods without dropping below eighty miles an hour. Danny particularly liked the rumor that he'd driven right through the middle of a Senator's fundraiser and taken some politician's daughter for the ride of her life… before leaving her at her hotel sans panties. He was so good at getting away though, that no one could prove he'd done anything of the sort.**

**Clint prided himself on his character inventions. There was more to going undercover than just piercing your ears and wearing civilian clothes. It wasn't all about creating a false history or even distracting people with your skills; you needed to have a personality to fit the expectations of whoever you wanted to fool, all without making it look fake. Personality made everything.**

**Stepping out of his self-modified Japanese racecar, Danny watched the crowd of skimpily clad girls and racer-wannabes turn to look at him in interest. This was the first time Danny had come around the Daemon races, though he'd made a name for himself at several other gang's races.**

**"Well, looky-look who's here! It's Danny Best, the best of the best! I was wondering when you be comin' around here!" Go-To yelled as he stepped out of the crowd. Go-To was the man to go to if you had a question about anything to do with the racing world… hence the name. He was the flagman for every track in the area on account of his aptitude for keeping everyone up to speed on the other racers.**

**"Hey, G. How's it going?" Danny threw his cigarette to the asphalt and slapped Go-To on his shoulder.**

**Go-To began leading Danny through the crowd, "You know Danny boy, I'm really glad you're here tonight."**

**"Oh, and why's that?" Danny asked, ignoring the way everyone was looking at him with interest.**

**"This two-wheeler showed up outta-the-blue and has been taken everyone to the bank ever since, cars and 'cycles both," Go-To said. "Doesn't like to fight by the book neither, even though there ain't any rules on the Daemon track anyway, you know what I'm sayin'?"**

**Danny got a hungry smile on his face, "Sounds like I'll be getting some fun tonight. Where can I find this motherfucker?"**

**"On the track o' course!" Go-To said. "Everyone's tryin' their hand. Fire-cracker hasn't been off a race since six o'clock."**

**The roar of engines could be heard now, getting loader every second. The crowd started getting excited, turning to the deserted street.**

**Go-To disappeared with a shouted, "That's my cue!"**

**Danny turned to the road just as a bright green roadster sped around the corner into sight, a sleek little silver two-wheels right on its tail. The crowd got rowdy as they neared the finish line, rivaling the engines for volume, and the streetlights flickered on with the setting sun.**

**About half a mile from the finish, the motorcyclist hit the speed extra hard, leaning to the right - and then leaning a little more. The people on the sidewalk started to edge towards the buildings nervously. A few women screamed as the motorcycle actually mounted the curb and headed for the crowd… but Danny didn't even blink. Hawkeye saw the table leaning against the tailgate of a truck parked on the sidewalk.**

**The trajectory and hard-hitting speed worked together beautifully to launch the motorcyclist into the air and right into the path of the car still racing directly for the finish. The driver of the green roadster, obviously startled, let up the speed just enough to let his opponent pull ahead and cross the finish line first.**

**Amidst cheering, the motorcycle leaned hard into a skidding stop directly in front of where Danny stood, sending up smoke and the smell of burned rubber.**

**Danny was merely impressed. Hawkeye was thinking this guy had to have training of some sort; he couldn't be just a kid with a passion for racing motorcycles.**

**Then the motorcyclist sat up and reached up to pull off the helmet… and Danny saw the cascade of bright red hair.**

**The driver of the green car suddenly appeared, yelling angrily, "Are you out of your fucking mind?! That stunt could've killed someone, you bitch! You can't drive straight into a crowd like that!"**

**The redheaded woman astride the sleek silver motorcycle sat back with a calculating expression. "Now why would _you_ say I can't do something… when it was _me_ who won? Performance issues?" The woman's smile was cruelly amused. "There aren't any rules on Daemon Streets, hot shot. Remember that next time you race them."**

**'Hot Shot' stepped toward her menacingly, but Go-To was quickly in the way, saying, "Don't like the way the lady races? Don't race her again. Come on, man, get in your car. Walk away." The driver took Go-To's advice, but not without shooting the redhead several deadly glares.**

**Go-To reappeared by Danny's side. Before he could say anything though, Danny was saying in amazement, "The fuck, G! You didn't tell me she was a goddamn girl."**

**Go-To smirked, "Wanted you to see her skills first. Doesn't disappoint, does she? And mighty pretty, I might add."**

**Danny huffed, watching the redhead drive her motorcycle to the lot where all the other cars were. "Who is she?"**

**"Says her name's Anna Whitaker. Never heard of her before today. You?"**

**Danny shook his head. "I gotta meet this chick. Get someone to watch my car…. And find me a bike with some extra kick." With that, he strode away through the crowd.**

**Danny Best might be interested in a little friendly competition, but Agent Barton wanted to know what the hell the Black Widow was doing out of confinement. This just seemed like the least obvious way to find out.**

* * *

**She was no longer Natalia Romanova. That girl was so far-gone in a whirlwind of densely packed therapy that she'd needed a new name to compartmentalize the change. She now called herself Natasha Romanoff and, no matter how similar their names were, she found it… _progressive_, for lack of a better word. The only name that stayed consistent with her was the Black Widow. The Black Widow embodied the one who'd escaped Red Room, the one who'd made the decision to free-lance, and also the one who'd decided to follow a certain S.H.I.E.L.D. agent home. She would never give up the Black Widow.**

**But right now, she was Anna Whitaker, the mysterious motorcycle racer that'd appeared out of nowhere and was currently making a splash. That was the beauty of this cover operation; she didn't need a backstory. All she needed was a disarming personality, which was easier than cake to pretend.**

**"Nice race."**

**Anna looked up from her work on the tires of her motorcycle to see a stranger looking down at her. Natasha, however, recognized Agent Barton. He didn't waste much time, did he?**

**"Thanks," Anna smiled. "It's nice to know someone appreciates it when I think outside the box." She was using her Texan accent today.**

**The man smiled, "It's nice to know someone around here still thinks outside the box."**

**Anna laughed flirtatiously and held out her hand, "Anna Whitaker."**

**He shook her hand roughly, "Danny Best."**

**"You race, Danny?" Anna asked, one eyebrow raised.**

**Danny smirked, "Haven't lost in years." He feigned a bored look. "Kind of sad really."**

**Anna laughed, "Oh! Do I hear a challenge?"**

**Danny's smirk grew wider. "I don't know. Do you?"**

**"Alright, Mr. Best," Anna said, grabbing her helmet. "Find yourself some wheels, because we..." she put the helmet on her head "… are gonna have ourselves a little race."**

**Many an engine-roar, landing-thump, and tire-squeal later, Danny and Anna were neck-and-neck two miles from the finish line.**

**Even on a borrowed motor, Agent Barton was hell on wheels. Natasha had had to pull out all the stops to keep up with him… and she had to say, it was refreshing to say the least. All of her fancy jumps and direction-changes hadn't fazed him in the slightest; in fact, he'd done some of his own tricks that'd caught even her off guard.**

**And now, when tricks would only slow them down, it was all down to that moment when the drivers would have to give that last chemical kick of speed. This was where Natasha wasn't her most confident. Too soon and you'd run out of juice before you crossed the finish. Too late and the other driver would outrun you.**

**Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Barton starting to slide into the lead. The finish line was half a mile away… it was now or never.**

**Clicking the button on the right handle bar, Natasha felt the machine under her start to hum violently and her speed increased exponentially. The adrenaline gave a leap in her heart and she couldn't help the wild smile under her helmet.**

**The finish line was barely ten meters away when Barton somehow shot ahead of her.**

**He won the race by three feet.**

**Switching out of the chemical-induced turbo, Anna skidded to a stop and, sweating and slightly out of breath, watched the spectacle in front of her.**

**The crowd on the sidewalks was louder than ever as Danny Best threw his motorcycle through a few victory circles, causing an even bigger riot. People ran out to meet him, most of them girls in short skirts or tight pants. Go-To, the flagman, announced that Anna Whitaker had finally been defeated. Jumping off the bike, Danny ripped his helmet from his wild blond hair and lifted his hands in the air, yelling and smiling triumphantly.**

**Natasha told herself that it was Barton just playing to his character, but she could help the anger bubbling in her chest. As petty as it sounded, she did not like that he'd won her. All of their previous interactions had ended with the understanding that everything that happened to her, or didn't happen to her, was because she'd wanted it to. In her mind, when she lost to him it was because she didn't have the choice; it was because he'd forced her to loose.**

**Thank the fucking lord she'd suffered through the therapy or she wouldn't have been able to keep character.**

**Anna shook her head and pulled the helmet off, looking good-naturedly disappointed. Danny Best was walking toward her, a smile on his face.**

**"Good racing," he said when he'd finally reached her. He held out his hand.**

**Anna smiled and took his hand, "You too. We should do it again sometime."**

**Danny looked like he was going to say something, but he got distracted by his phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered it saying, "Hey, Nat… hey, wait… I can't fucking hear you. It's too loud out here… wait a minute…" Natasha got the message loud and clear.**

**Danny walked toward an old dimly lit bar.**

**Anna quickly put up her bike and found a roundabout way to the side door. She easily found him in the men's bathroom and as soon as the door had closed behind her, Barton closed his phone, turning toward her.**

**"What are you doing here?" he asked calmly, his hands relaxed at his side.**

**"Same as you," Natasha said, folding her arms.**

**"This isn't a two person job."**

**"Fury seems to think so."**

**"Why you?"**

**"They didn't give me specifics."**

**"Bullshit. You know."**

**Natasha narrowed her eyes. How did he _do _that? "This is my first field assignment."**

**Barton scowled, "And I'm the babysitter, is that it?"**

**Natasha confirmed it by not saying anything.**

**"Why send you to _me_? I'm not an S.O."**

**"How should I know?" Natasha asked.**

**"Lets stop pretending we both don't know how good you are at reading people," Barton said seriously.**

**Natasha huffed. How was he still reading her? Why couldn't she lie? She'd thought that the weeks in the Glass Box had messed with her poker face somewhat and that was how he'd read her then… but now? She should be better at it than this. Maybe she angrier about loosing that she thought.**

**"What are they looking for, Romanova?" Barton asked.**

**"It's Agent Romanoff now, Barton," she said. "And as for your question, I'm not sure."**

**"What is _Agent Romanoff's_ best guess then?" Barton said, sounding impatient for the first time.**

**Natasha sighed, leaning her shoulder against the wall opposite the sinks. "Coulson said something about seeing how well we work together, which makes me think they're trying to figure out what happened in Rome."**

**Barton's eyes widened and his forehead creased. "What do they think happened?"**

**Natasha opened her mouth but Barton cut her off, "If you say you don't know, I swear..." He let the threat go on unheard.**

**Natasha narrowed her eyes. This was frustrating her. She'd have to give up trying to lie to him. For now. "The common theory is that I seduced you. They want to see if you're compromised."**

**Barton's reaction wasn't what she expected from an obviously heterosexual man. She would've expected indignation at the word compromised… even an appreciative once-over of her body wouldn't have been surprising.**

**But Barton snorted_. _He actually _snorted. _Not a laugh. It was a derisive _snort_.**

**Natasha felt something bristle inside her; however unintentional, he'd just challenged the Black Widow, and the Black Widow took challenges personally. If he didn't think that she could seduce any heterosexual man she set her mind to, including him… she was going to prove him wrong. Period.**

**"Are you under surveillance?" Barton asked.**

**Natasha shook her head, "No. They don't want to risk exposing you."**

**"So they're using the honor system. Or they have an unfounded trust in their lie detectors," Barton said, smiling to himself.**

**Natasha found herself wondering if maybe he wasn't all _there_ upstairs.**

**Footsteps. Right outside the bathroom door.**

**Barton immediately reached into his pocket, going for his phone, but Natasha had other… more convincing plans. She grabbed a handful of his shirt and pushed his back into the wall, simultaneously thrusting her tongue into his mouth. Barton tensed for a moment, but a second later, his hands went directly to her ass and he was kissing her back vigorously, not at all hesitant.**

**Natasha was grimly satisfied. Judging by the way his body temperature spiked when her hands went up his shirt, he'd be a very responsive target if ever she should be so inclined. She could consider his challenge dead and buried.**

**But at the same time, she felt a little disappointed to find that he was just like other men, which was a very unexpected feeling. Too many things were unexpected around Clint Barton.**

**Natasha heard the door open. "Hey, Danny boy, you in here?" It was Go-To.**

**Anna was a little embarrassed at being caught and tried to pull away, but Danny's hands remained on her waist, holding her against his chest as he asked, "What is it, G?"**

**"When you get a minute," Go-To was smirking from the doorway, "I have someone who wants to meet ya."**

**Danny chuckled, "Yeah, give me a sec."**

**"Don't be all night about it." Go-To laughed, shaking his head, and shut the door.**

**Natasha thought she might need to deactivate the current situation with a few choice violent words. But… as was becoming _fucking_ _tradition_… she didn't expect what Barton did next.**

**He shoved her away to stand in the middle of the bathroom, away from the door and all possible cover, and instantly had a gun trained on her forehead. The expression on his face was one she'd never seen from him; it was… blank. His hand was absolutely steady, his breathing even. He looked more ready to kill her now than he had that night in Rome.**

**Natasha's mind was running a million kilometers per hour, but she couldn't see a way out of this. She would have to remain still and hope he wouldn't shoot her. She couldn't run away, couldn't grab anything quick enough, and wasn't close enough to disarm him. Barton was simply too excellent of a marksman for any hope of succeeding.**

**His voice was dead when he finally spoke. "If you _ever _touch me like that again, cover or no cover," Barton said, still emotionless, "I will end you."**

**Natasha didn't move, but allowed her eyes to blink in reply. Maybe she didn't know Clint Barton as well as she'd like to think. One thing was certain though; he was not like any man she'd met so far, and he was dangerous for it.**

* * *

**Hawkeye didn't allow Clint to think about it after he saw the acknowledgment in the Black Widow's eyes. He couldn't deal with Clint Barton's shit in the middle of an op. Clint Barton couldn't be here right now. Clint Barton _wasn't _here. Only Hawkeye.**

**Hawkeye put his gun back in his waistband at the small of his back, saying, "I'm assuming that you know why we're here. Go-To is just about to introduce me to Zander Bertrand."**

**Natasha's eyes lit up.**

**"Yeah," Hawkeye said, nodding. It'd taken a full month of high profile racing to get the bastard to surface. Natasha's excitement was warranted. "Stay where you can see me and I'll let you know when I'm about to make a move." Without another word, he left the bathroom and went back out onto the street.**

**Walking around as Danny Best was harder than it'd ever been before or should ever be. Clint Barton kept wanting to surface and Hawkeye was wrestling him down, which left little room for Danny.**

**"There's the man! Danny! Over here, bro!" Go-To called. He was standing next to a man Danny had never met before but Hawkeye recognized him easily.**

**"Danny, meet Zander Bertrand," Go-To said. "Zander, this is Danny Best, the guy who won the race against the redhead hottie."**

**Zander held out his hand, smiling smugly.**

**Danny took it briefly. "No disrespect man, but uh… what do you want? The only reason I'm here is 'cause I know G. and he said to meet you." Hawkeye allowed some of his anger at Natasha to influence Danny's words.**

**"Oh no, no disrespect. As it stands, I owe you an apology," Bertrand said. "I understand you were… busy when Go-To went to find you."**

**Go-To chuckled, saying, "How about I leave you gen'lemen to it huh? Get another race started." He disappeared into the crowd.**

**"So, uh… what's this about? What do you want?" Danny asked again, conscious of how out-of-the-way they were.**

**Bertrand leaned against the wall. "You interested in a job?"**

**Danny shrugged, "Depends on what you're asking."**

**"Look," Bertrand pulled out a pack of cigarettes, "you're a smart guy. Lots of talent behind the wheel. Good head full of all the right questions." He offered Danny a cigarette, which was turned down. "There's a specific team of racers I think you'd be perfect in."**

**"And if I'm not interested?"**

**Bertrand shrugged, "It's an open invitation. I leave and you contact me if you change your mind." He held out a card with ten singular digits on it.**

**Danny took it, looking at Bertrand with wary eyes. "Why do I feel like this job isn't just about racing cars?"**

**Bertrand's smile widened, "You'll have to join the team to find out. Trade secrets, you know. I'm sure you understand."**

**Danny's eyes narrowed.**

**"Don't loose that card," Bertrand said as he started to walk away. "See you around, Danny." He disappeared in the crowd.**

**Hawkeye made sure he wasn't going to turn around before following him out to the curb. As he walked, he dialed the number on the card.**

**By the time Hawkeye caught up to Bertrand, the gang-leader was next to his car, his bodyguard holding open the door. He had his suit-jacket held open as he searched for his ringing phone.**

**Hawkeye suddenly broke into a run. As he sprinted forward, he shot a bullet into the bodyguard's sunglasses a mere second before he tackled Bertrand. Three bodies hit the ground and screams echoed through the crowd.**

**Bullets started flying from the other side of Bertrand's car. Hawkeye rolled once across the sidewalk and killed the driver with one squeeze of the trigger. He barely even had to think about aiming.**

**Bertrand had managed to get to his feet and run a few steps before Danny's shiny black racer skidded driver's side first to a stop in front of him. The open window showed a frightening redheaded woman with a pistol aimed at his head.**

**Hawkeye grabbed Bertrand by the collar and hauled him around to the back of the car. The Daemon Gang-leader was resisting, asking stupid questions like "What are you doing?" and "Do you know who I am?"**

**Bullets started flying, making everyone on the street scream and duck.**

**"Hurry up, Barton!" the Black Widow yelled, returning fire.**

**Hawkeye calmly but roughly shoved the resisting man the rest of the way into the trunk and slammed the lid down.**

**"Get us the fuck out of here!" he yelled, jumping into the passenger seat barely a second before she hit the gas.**

**"You get the phone?" Natasha asked as she shifted gears.**

**Hawkeye held it up for her to see before he had to turn and aim out the window at a car full of gun-wielding hostiles.**

**The car looked like Swiss cheese by the time they lost the Daemon Racers and all three passengers were bleeding, but alive.**


	7. Chapter Seven

**JOHN MAYER ~ SLOW DANCING IN A BURNING ROOM**

**…**

Natasha punched at her friend and he suddenly disappeared from sight. Then his leg had appeared, hooked around her ankles, and his arm was across her back, pushing her forward.

She wasn't strong enough to redirect and Clint was on top of her before she could do anything about it. They both crashed to the ground, Clint pushing her face-first into the wood floor with his shins across her thighs and his hands on her elbows.

Natasha grew still, assessing the situation and trying to think of the best way out of this, but Clint was too heavy for her to do anything without seriously injuring both of them in the process. Unless he managed to fuck up his advantage somehow, which would be a miracle.

"How's that for defense?" Clint asked, amused. Smug, drunk asshole.

"Get off me," Natasha said.

Clint laughed.

As soon as his weight left her arms, she threw her elbow back into his gut, making solid contact.

Clint jerked and began groaning, rolling off of her. Natasha smirked, rolling on to her back as well. They ended up with his arm under her neck and her hand palm-up on his stomach.

"Cheap shot," Clint breathed, looking at her with glazed eyes. For a lightweight drinker, his control was pretty impressive.

"All's fair in war," Natasha said simply, turning her head to stare at the blank ceiling. It was amazing how relaxed she felt now.

"I think the expression is 'All's fair in _love_ and war,'" Clint said.

"I made it better," Natasha shrugged.

Clint shrugged with her, "True." He really was wasted.

"I think you need to sleep," Natasha said, staring at him.

"It's hot in here." Clint ignored her, rolling away and grunting drunkenly. He got onto his hands and knees. "Why is it so damn hot?" He set his head on the floor, his body wobbling unsteadily as his blood rushed to his brain. "Isn't it hot in here?"

Natasha crouched next to him. "That's the vodka."

He leaned up and sat back on his heels, attacking the collar of his gray sweater until he'd pulled it up over his head. It left him with his white undershirt and a very messy head of hair. He sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Better." He must've been bodybuilding since she'd seen him last, because his arms were thicker than she remembered.

Natasha sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She was no lightweight, but she could feel the headache coming on now and she hadn't even slept yet. "Clint…" she started to say.

Clint smiled and looked at her. "You hardly ever say my name."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Get up." She grabbed his arm and started pulling him up.

Clint grunted again, grabbing onto her hips for support as he tried dragging himself to his feet.

"Whoa, ok," Natasha stumbled, putting her arms under his arms and trying to slowly ease him up.

It was harder than it should've been; hadn't he just masterfully pinned her to the floor a minute ago? How did he get this drunk since then?

When he was finally standing up, Natasha exhaled in relief. "Heavy bastard! How much do you eat?"

Clint chuckled vaguely. He looked unsteady, his hands still on her waist as a form of stability.

Natasha ran a hand up and down his bare arm briskly, trying to get him to focus. But it only encouraged him to pull her closer, wrapping his arms around her completely in a tight hug, his face in her neck.

She let him hold her. She didn't allow herself to think about what it meant to be hugged; she just put a hand around his shoulder and the other around his bicep, trying to be a strong body to lean on and nothing more.

After a few seconds, Clint began swaying again. Natasha was afraid he might be passing out, but he didn't ever fall. Then she realized he was shuffling, not swaying. He began humming.

"Are you serious?" Natasha asked into his shoulder. She didn't stop his leading her through the dance though.

Clint chuckled again in answer, pulling her hand from his arm and holding it against his chest. He continued to hum.

Natasha was finding it a little hard to think now. She wanted to push him away, but for some reason, she didn't. She allowed him to keep dancing with her… even though it made her thoughts burn like hell. They weren't on mission and this wasn't for show… it was spontaneous but she didn't think it was just for fun… It was meaningful to him and she didn't know what the hell to do.

Clint's humming gradually turned into lyrics, slurred but still intelligible and musical. "We're going down… And you can see it, too… We're going down… And you know that we're doomed… My dear, we're… slow dancing in a… burning room…"

Natasha felt her lungs constrict.

It was happening again, whatever it was that made her feel like she was about to lose her soul; already, she could feel it vibrating against every atom in her body, knocking on the window she kept trying to board up.

She threw her weight against the proverbial window, adding her support to the barricade. Clint didn't know what he was doing; there was no way he could know what he did to her. It was completely_her_ fault, and so Natasha would have to suffer through it alone. She wouldn't call attention to it. She could never let him know.

She tried to distract herself. "You are _very_ drunk." She sounded cold even to her own ears. That was good.

"Mmm," Clint agreed against her skin, ignoring her.

Natasha hastily pulled back to look at him, desperately trying to hide the way she was so deeply shaken. "You smell like smoke."

Clint paused and frowned, looking at her in worry. He must've seen how freaked out she was.

"You lied to me," Natasha stated, the 'burning room' still making her feel trapped, feel desperate.

He looked a little confused now. "I know how much the cigarettes bug you."

Natasha put her hand behind his neck, making him look at her, "Not as much as you lying to me."

* * *

That sobered Clint right up. His serene little moment was effectively gone now. "I lie all the time, Nat," he said warily.

Natasha's jaw clenched, as well as her fist in his hair, and then she forcibly relaxed her body, turning away. She slowly walked over to the bed and sat down, staring at the wall opposite to her.

Clint watched her, still feeling the affects of the alcohol, but coherent enough to see the way her shoulders were bunched. Had she been feeling this the whole time he was dancing with her? He hadn't meant to overstep whatever boundaries Natasha put around herself; he respected her too much and knew she respected him the same way. Maybe he'd let his goddamn cheerfulness bleed a little excessively and it made her uncomfortable.

Clint walked over and sat carefully next to her. "Tasha?"

Natasha's head whipped around at him, her green eyes flashing. "Is it really so easy to lie to me?" she asked.

Clint was not prepared for one of Tasha's rare moods, but he decided to proceed… with _extreme_ caution. "Tasha, I lie for a living…"

"I'm not looking for excuses, Barton," she said stonily. "I'm not some insecure little housewife. I just want to know why it's so easy."

Clint hesitated, and then shook his head, "It isn't easy."

"Why did I believe you then?" Natasha asked.

Clint got a little frustrated. "Seriously? We were on the phone! Even then, I was about to tell you the truth, but then you started talking about… skills and matches and stuff." He rubbed and smacked his head vigorously as he talked, trying to get rid of the alcohol in his brain so he could fucking think clearly. "It's never easy to lie to you. I've only ever lied to you about ten times since meeting you and you didn't believe most of them anyway." Clint hoped to god she didn't ask which ones she _didn't_ catch.

Natasha seemed almost hesitantto ask her next question. "Why do you never believe mine?"

Clint froze, looking up. He was having a hell of a time reading her non-existent expressions.

"Why do you always catch it when I lie?" she repeated, scaring him shitless with the return of her god-forsaken mask. He hadn't seen it in years. She was suddenly just like the girl he met in Rome.

Clint's brain was working on overdrive, trying to find out what his answer was. He tried. "Because… I know you," he said quietly, still unsure.

"But you've _never _believed me," she said softly. "Even from the beginning, when you were sent to question me in the Glass Box. You knew I was lying even then, before you knew me."

Clint couldn't believe that they were having this conversation when he was this drunk. To be honest, he'd never thought about _why_ he could call her bluffs. He just _knew_. It was instinct. And instinct was what kept him alive most of the damn time, so why question it?

Besides, how was he supposed to know that she'd never been able to deceive him? He'd accepted that it was just part of the lifestyle they led; it was acceptable that she was going to lie to him sometimes… just like he lied to her.

Goddamn it, he did not need another reason to feel guilty.

"What the hell do you want me to say, Nat?" he asked, trying to stay calm. "I just… _know_ you. It's instinct."

Natasha's mask finally broke. Her mouth didn't seem to want to close from the half-open stance it was in. She was staring at him as if she wasn't seeing him. She looked… dazed. _That _was unexpected.

Clint waited for a response. "Natasha?"

Natasha flinched and looked down at her hands, breathing deeply. "Forget I said anything. Just… forget it."

Clint didn't need to say anything, just put his hand on her arm and smiled when she finally looked up at him. He could see that she was done with being honest for now…

Fuck. She was a mess. They both were.


	8. Chapter Eight

THE KILLS ~ SOUR CHERRY

…

**Clint knew this was going to be an exciting mission from the get-go. Not only was he still babysitting an unpredictable, volatile ex-Russian, but he was actually _in_ fucking _Russia_with a price of a million dollars on his partner's corpse. But he didn't think it'd be so fucking complicated to steal some super-secret shit from a single-story lab.**

**Someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. definitely had it in for him and he honestly wouldn't put it past Fury to be this vindictive. He still hadn't completely forgiven Clint for getting the Black Widow on their side. On the other hand, Coulson had seemed a little peeved that Clint had been the only one she'd talk to…**

**Clint was muttering curses about Russians and jealous, malicious secret agents when Natasha appeared on the dark rooftop next to him.**

**"What happened?" she hissed angrily.**

**"I could just say I fucked up, but that'd be too obvious. Alarm started up 30 seconds after I entered the building," Clint sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Trevinskia has obviously lost his mind and set the lab to detonate in…" he checked his watch "…eight minutes and eighteen seconds."**

**He heard Natasha swear under her breath, her jaw twitching. "I saw Trevinskia lock himself in his office," she said. "We'll need him to get into the lab." She turned on her heel.**

**"Red Room knows we're here too," Clint added.**

**If he expected a reaction from her, he didn't get it.**

**Thirty seconds later, they were standing over a skylight, looking down into an ostentatious office with two guards standing in front of a gigantic solid-looking metal door that'd once been hidden behind a bookcase.**

**"Got any ideas?" Clint whispered.**

**"Ideas on how to get out of the country before Red Room shows up," Natasha said dryly, "or get the fucker sitting in the reinforced steel panic room down to the weapons lab before we're it's blown sky-high?" She looked pointedly through the skylight at the huge metal door set behind a fancy-looking desk.**

**Clint's eyebrows rose, "Is it too much to ask for both?"**

**Natasha gave him an impatient look. "It might be. We wouldn't be in this mess if your clumsy ass hadn't tipped them off, anyway."**

**"Well, nobody's perfect, Nat," he muttered, grinning. He knew how much his cheerfulness got under her skin, which was the perfect revenge for the 'clumsy' comment.**

**Natasha rolled her eyes and turned to stare down through the skylight once more, the gears in her head churning.**

**Clint's smile grew; during the past four months, she'd bite his head off every time he called her anything other than Romanoff. But she ignored it this time. Good to see he was making progress.**

**"The quickest thing to do is gas the guards," Natasha was saying to herself, her eyes flicking around like a cat's. "But that doesn't solve the door. We don't have enough time to crack the code before this place goes up. Breaking in is out of the question. Explosives wouldn't work…"**

**"So it all comes down to a show," Clint said. He turned his precise gaze on his partner. "I believe that's your cue."**

**Natasha frowned and walked away toward the ledge. "Stay out of the way and give me room to work, Barton."**

**"Oh don't worry. I'll be watching from _way_ up here," he smirked at the two nervous guards, feeling glad he wasn't in _their_ shoes.**

**Barely a minute and a half later, a curvaceous redhead walked into the office below. Clint couldn't hear what she was saying, but he'd become very adept at lip-reading over the years. Her red lips were forming the Russian equivalent of words like, "_lost control of the situation_," and "_called the police_" and "_get Trevinskia out of here."_**

**The guards were very nearly convinced by her commanding tone; it helped that her close-fitting uniform was particularly distracting. One man actually went to open the door, but then the other stopped him, saying, "_Who are you_?"**

**Clint tsked and shook his head. Stupid man didn't know when to just keep his mouth shut. At least the Black Widow had tried the nice way first. That counted for something in _his _book.**

* * *

**Natasha jabbed the loudmouth's throat so hard he went unconscious and was holding the other guard against the wall in a heartbeat, her knifepoint just under his eye. "_Do you want to open the door and live or die a painful death and give the pedophile behind that door a few more minutes?" _she asked in her native tongue. "_Because either is a possibility."_**

**The guard was shaking as he punched in the code for the door.**

**"_Wise choice," _she said before smashing his head violently into the wall and knocking him out.**

**The giant steel door hissed and clunked a couple times before swinging open. Walking over, Natasha looked into the nine-by-nine-by-nine room… No one was in sight. She'd watched the target walk into that room barely five minutes ago. Where, exactly, could an overweight man like Trevinskia hide in there?**

**Footsteps thundered down the hall behind her. She looked over her shoulder at the four gun-handling men entering the room, yelling angrily in Russian for her to raise her hands.**

**'_Show' indeed._**

**Back-flipping over the large desk in the middle of the room, she simultaneously disarmed the first reinforcement and sideswiped him in the temple, bring him down. The next two were electrocuted quickly with the fancy S.H.I.E.L.D. toys on her wrists. The last man was able to get a gunshot or two off before she kicked the gun out of his hand and adroitly spun around behind him. She jumped up, winding her legs around his upper arms and standing on his hips. Then, using her legs as leverage, she twisted his head around forcefully. He slumped to the ground and Natasha landed standing over him.**

**Hand-to-hand really was an art form in Natasha's mind.**

**Suddenly, there was a near-silent _thump-smack! _behind her_. _Immediately following that was a scream and the faint sound of tinkling glass.**

**Whirling around with her gun, Natasha saw Trevinskia staring at his wrist, which was pierced to the top of the desk by a wicked-looking arrow, a gun inches from his hand.**

**Natasha's mouth twisted sadistically.**

**With a little more crashing glass, Clint Barton fell through the ceiling to land a few feet from her. Shaking the glass from his uniform, he looked a little too pleased with himself.**

**Natasha looked back at the whimpering target trying to pull the arrow out of his arm. "So. Are we bringing an entire desk along, or is the target loosing an arm?" she asked.**

**Barton raised his eyebrows, holding up his bow for her to see as he clicked a button near the handgrip.**

**The arrow pinning Trevinskia to the desk whirred and the shaft abruptly detached from the head. The pudgy weapons-developer stumbled away from the desk into a wall and slid to the ground, his fingers clutching his wound.**

**Barton shook his head in amused exasperation as he walked toward their hyperventilating target.**

**Natasha rolled her eyes.**

* * *

**Clint bent down to look at the sweaty Russian's wrist, pulling it up to examine it. As he'd expected, the arrow had missed his bones but got too close to a major vein. He'd bleed out before they could make use of him if Clint didn't at least wrap it up.**

**"Why did you interfere? I told you to stay out of my way," Natasha said. She sounded a little ticked off, but not to the degree that he needed to be worried.**

**Clint looked at her with one eyebrow cricked upward, "Good thing arrows don't take up much room then, huh?" Without warning or sympathy, he grabbed the shaft of the headless arrow and ripped it out of Travenskia's flesh, making the Russian howl. "And how about a little gratitude?" he added, just to be a jackass. "I did just kind of save you from unnecessary bleeding."**

**Natasha simply holstered her gun in reply. Clint could just imagine the gory thoughts going through her head. He grinned.**

**"How are we doing on time?" Clint asked as he held a wad of gauze to Travenskia's arm and applied brutal pressure.**

**"Five minutes, but we have less than one before the rest of security gets here," Natasha said.**

**Their target recoiled in fear as she strode toward them. Watching her take down those four men in less than ten seconds had been entertaining for Clint… terrifying for others, apparently.**

**Clint hurriedly wrapped the wounded wrist, "Hauling Chubby here around, we aren't going to get very far before detonation."**

**"Better start running then," Natasha said, pulling Trevinskia up by his collar and dragging him toward the door.**

**Clint watched in amusement as the petite woman-in-progress towed the large man along like he was a child. She was much stronger than she looked. So many men underestimated her only to find themselves thrown out the fucking window with her knife between their ribs.**

**"You coming, Robin Hood?" she yelled as she neared the door. Her slight accent made the fictional name sound ridiculous.**

**"Turn left! You want to go left!" Clint shouted when Natasha was about to turn down the hall to the right.**

**Natasha bodily heaved her victim back in the right direction and flipped Clint off with her free hand. The look she gave him was absolutely poisonous.**

**Clint nearly laughed, but he opted for silence as he ran after her. There was hope for Natasha Romanoff yet. She might still be violent and grisly-minded, but she was definitely getting better at acting her age.**

* * *

**"_Please… please, don't kill me," _Trevinskia was mumbling in terror as he was forced to jog down the empty hallways. _"I'll pay you whatever you want… please…"_**

**_"Stop talking or I'll feed you your own testicles," _Natasha growled in his ear before pushing the man to move faster.**

**"Well aren't you just as sweet as cherry pie?" Barton chuckled sarcastically from behind her.**

**"I'll do worse to you, Barton, if you don't shut up," Natasha threatened without looking around at him. The bastard just did _not _have any self-preservation skills, did he?**

**She could feel the smirk on his face as he stared at the back of her head, but the arrival of eight heavily armed men prevented her from punching him right then.**

**Half of the men had arrow shafts sticking out of their necks or bullet holes in their faces before the assassins had to take cover. Natasha found herself in the room across the hall from Barton and Trevinskia.**

**"Chubby's been shot!" Barton yelled to her as he peered around the doorframe. "Better make this quick!" A round of submachine gun fire exploded the wood near his face, making him flinch out of the way.**

**Natasha whipped her head around the door, barely getting a read on their assailants' positions before she had to retreat again. "Cover me!" she shouted. Without a second's pause, she darted from cover and sprinted straight down the hall.**

**"_Fucking hell_!" Barton bellowed behind her, walking out into the hall. He dropped his bow and drew his handgun, shooting repeatedly into the walls in front of the enemy to keep them from shooting _her_.**

**Natasha sailed around a corner and divested two security guards of their weapons before they even knew she was there, kicking the legs out from under one of them. He hit his head pretty hard and wouldn't be getting up.**

**The remaining guards standing in the opposite hall had aimed their guns toward her. Natasha grabbed the guard still standing and thrust him in front of her; he twitched against her as the bullets lodged in his body instead of hers.**

**Barton appeared then, snapping the front gunman's arm clean in half. His boot made solid contact with the second man's knee. His fists and feet began moving in rhythm, causing a strange sort of harmony with the sound of his hits and his victims' cries of pain.**

**Natasha watched, surprisingly entranced by the intricate, rapid pattern in his movements. Is that what other people saw when she was beating her prey into pulp? If so, it was easy to see why her image was a source of fear.**

**When all the opponents were finally motionless on the floor, Clint paused, breathing hard, and turned to see Natasha staring at him with a weird look in her eyes.**

**After a moment, she turned to walk back where they'd left Trevinskia. "You could've just shot them," she said over her shoulder.**

* * *

**Clint froze momentarily, and then followed her, the adrenaline still high on his brain. "What the hell was that?" he asked wildly.**

**She looked over her shoulder at him but didn't slow down, scowling. "What?"**

**"You don't fucking run into enemy fire like that!" he answered, pointed down the hallway in demonstration. "It's a good way to get us killed!"**

**Natasha huffed, rolling her eyes, "In case you haven't noticed, it's an occupational hazard." She disappeared through the doorway where they'd left Trevinskia.**

**Clint's jaw clenched. Oh, _now _she gets a sense of humor?**

**He took one giant breath, bent down to grab his bow, and followed her into the room, deciding that now wasn't the time to knock some sense into his reckless partner.**

**"He's lost a lot of blood," Natasha stated, crouched over their target. "He won't be conscious for long."**

**Clint looked at his watch, "That's ok. He just needs to make it two more minutes."**

**Natasha flipped her hair out of her eyes and looked up at him with annoyance, making him smile in return. "You going to stand there all day or help me?" she snapped.**

**Clint's smile only grew but he leaned down and grabbed the large man's arm, putting it around his neck. Natasha did the same with his other arm. Trevinskia groaned, his head lolling onto his chest as they pulled him to his feet.**

**"Weapon's lab is just around the corner," Clint grunted, leading them out the door. "Come on."**

* * *

**Trevinskia was bleeding all over her and his goddamn cologne was too strong. Not to mention he was heavy.**

**Natasha wondered, not for the first time, why the hell they were on this mission. Some other team without a Russian history probably wouldn't have tripped the wires _or_ alerted Red Room and the theft would've gone off without a hitch. But no. S.H.I.E.L.D. thought it'd be wise to send the Black Widow back home with Hawkeye in tow and see if they could keep it together.**

**Whoever assigned the missions was either a moron… or some stupid level of genius. It was probably Coulson. Definitely Coulson.**

**"Here we are," Barton said, stopping beside the lab door. "Hey buddy!" he yelled, smacking Trevinskia behind the head. "Feel like helping us out?"**

**Natasha rolled her eyes and dropped the man's arm, leaving Barton with all his weight. She expected him to complain, but Barton didn't even seem to be struggling holding the obese Russian up.**

**Grabbing Trevinskia under his jaw, she forced him to look up at her. "_If you get us into the lab, you'll walk out of this alive. Do you understand me?"_**

**Trevinskia's watery eyes widened and he nodded weakly. He looked to a little keypad in the side of the door, which Natasha immediately went for.**

**"_7…52…190," _Trevinskia mumbled.**

**Natasha hurriedly punched in the numbers and an array of biological scanners appeared in the door.**

**Trevinskia finally lost consciousness, making Barton grunt with exertion as he held his dead weight. Natasha didn't comment on it, slapping Trevinskia's palm to the scanner. When that was done, she helped Barton maneuver the man's face in front of the retinal scanner and then held his eyelid open. And finally, the door opened.**

**Grunting a little, Barton lowered Trevinskia to the ground while Natasha hurried into the lab. Things were a mess; everyone sure had left in a hurry.**

**"We've only got one minute, Nat," Clint told her. "We don't have enough time to get the files."**

**"I know, I know!" Natasha said severely, shoving a stack of folders away from the only computer in the room and plugging a portable hard drive into an outlet. "See what you can do about the explosives!... And stop calling me 'Nat!'"**

**Clint resisted the urge to roll his eyes and marched over to where he knew the TNT was rigged to a set of missiles. Leaning his hands on the table, he stared at the jumble of wires for a few moments, his eyes hard.**

**It could possibly kill them if they didn't start running right now. Was this information really worth risking their lives?**

**_Stupid thoughts._**

**Clint mentally punched himself in the teeth and then walked over to the supply closet, opening the door wide. On his way back, he grabbed a pair of pliers from the counter along one wall. He wouldn't have enough time to completely disarm the TNT, but he'd have a better chance of separating it from the missiles.**

* * *

**With half a minute on the clock, Natasha suddenly appeared at his elbow. "It needs another sixty seconds to download."**

**Clint laughed sourly, his face shinning with perspiration, but didn't answer her. He needed to concentrate.**

**The red numbers were getting smaller before Natasha's eyes. Her heart started to race, but she didn't react when the timer ticked down to 15 seconds.**

**She had no idea what Barton was trying to do; he was just going a lot slower than she liked. But again, she didn't react, knowing she would only harm the situation.**

**8**

**Barton carefully pulled a small device linking some wires together from the inside of the missile, trying to breathe steadily. Natasha resisted the urge to yell at him.**

**5**

**Barton began clipping wires left and right, following some system unknown to Natasha.**

**2**

**He suddenly spun around, throwing the timer, plastic explosives and a handful of wires into the open janitor's closet.**

**Grabbing her arm, he dove under the table.**

**Natasha didn't need him to lead her, hitting the floor immediately.**

**The explosion was loud enough to make her ears ring and hot enough to make her skin rise in gooseflesh. She heard the ceiling around the closet collapse, and then the fire alarms went off, sprinklers starting their rain over the top of them.**

**Natasha opened her eyes to see Barton staring at her while he panted and water dripped down his face. The knowledge that she was still alive… because of _him…_ for the _seventh_time now… made the debt she owed him seem even more real. She began to think she'd always be in debt to him. Especially at the rate things were going. She didn't know if she liked the idea of being in debt to him forever.**

**Barton started shaking his head. "Next time," he said, "you're going in first."**

**Natasha resisted the peculiar urge to smile.**

**"Let's find a way out of here that doesn't involve getting chased by Red Room agents, shall we?" Barton asked, jumping to his feet and offering her his hand.**

**Natasha didn't take it.**


	9. Chapter Nine

**UNCLE JED ~ BROTHER (ORIGINAL BY MATT CORBY)**

**…**

They were sitting in front of each other, cross-legged on his bed. Her forearms lay directly on top of his, holding onto his elbows as he held onto hers. They didn't touch anywhere else, though their foreheads were close. They breathed slowly together, every breath relaxing them further. His eyes were closed, his head bowed, but she was staring at him, her eyes unusually soft.

Someone standing in the room with them would feel the calm yet precise atmosphere. If someone were to put this bizarre bond into terms, they would say it was an inescapable competition between friendship and profession. It was obvious that there was a severe amount of trust between these two people, a connection that went beyond understanding. But it was as if they were the same side of separate magnets, made of the same thing, but unable to connect, held apart by an invisible force. It was a competition that neither person wanted to acknowledge, but was there all the same.

* * *

Natasha could feel Clint's heartbeat in his arms. His pulse was so strong that it seemed as if she could hear it too. He was warm and hard under her hands, features she appreciated from afar, never completely understanding. Her own fighting tactics were about speed and deception, not power or strength. It was probably why he was able to overpower her half of the time.

Watching Clint's immobile, sleepy face was enjoyable to Natasha. The process was slow and easy. The lines in his face were soft, his eyelashes were shadowy, and his mouth was lax. The tranquility she saw in him at this moment was… dare she say it… beautiful, even if he was too rugged to really be called that.

Natasha didn't get enough tranquility in her life. Although, she didn't think she could take too much of it. Clint's behavior after only two months of peace was evidence of what it could do to a challenging personality.

But she knew his behavior tonight wasn't just about being cooped up too long… He did have a limited amount of freedom around Paris, so long as his false identity was intact.

No, this was about assignments and objectives. Or, more correctly, the lack thereof. Clint's entire life was about starting, manipulating, and ending wars. Since he was eighteen, he'd been an adrenaline junkie with absolute control, a sniper with pinpoint accuracy and near-perfect judgment on the field, and a leading competitor in the most dangerous game of life and death… but Natasha knew he was also a man susceptible to withdrawal.

And so, she felt sorry for her outburst earlier. Clint didn't deserve her emotional drama, no matter how much he might have caused it. No one deserved the Black Widow's emotional problems, even Natasha.

The man who'd given her life back to her deserved more than she could ever give, but she was going to give him whatever she could.

Clint's fingers shifted slightly on her arms, stroking her slightly before lying prone on her skin. When she did the same to him, his breathing became even more relaxed.

Natasha suddenly remembered their first mission together, when he'd threatened to kill her if she ever kissed him again. But now, after years of knowing each other, her touch relaxed him.

She wondered what experiences Clint had gone through that made the assassin react like this. They must've been extraordinary to condition such an unusual response in him. She herself was basically immune to physical intimacy. The only bodily contact that she had any thought over was violent and potentially threatening to her health.

But she couldn't ask about it; she was sure he'd never tell her and if the roles were reversed, he'd never ask. There were few things people like them never admitted to themselves, and the need for affection was one of them.

* * *

While his intense eyesight was cut off behind his eyelids, Clint's other senses became sharper. Not only was he fully aware of things going on in the other apartments and in the street below, but also he could hear Natasha breathing inches from his face and smell the soap she used and feel the utter smoothness of her skin with unusual clarity. It was mesmerizing to feel her dainty hands curled loosely on his arms and her soft skin just lying against his. It made her feel delicate and gentle, though she was anything but. It made him feel like he was made of marble, heavy and rough and immovable.

He was thinking about what Natasha had said to him about lying. About how much it'd affected her.

Natasha wasn't emotionless. Clint knew that through experience. She'd just been acclimatized to emotionless states and was still learning what they were. She was facing them head on, no matter how messy they could be at times. He was proud of her for it. That kind of torment was harder than anything they would see on the field. No one ever got it completely under control, but Natasha was getting better at it.

Clint believed he'd become the best he could be at understanding and redirecting his emotions when needed. It'd been years of hell, but he was a master at knowing his own head.

Consequently, he knew Natasha meant more to him than she should. There was no point in denying it. He only wondered how it'd escaped his notice for twelve years. But looking back, he realized that he'd started missing her while he was on a solo mission eight years ago, and it'd grown steadily worse from there. He'd started genuinely smiling at her six years ago. He started teasing her shortly after that. He'd started liking her touch three years ago. He started sitting with his feet on her chair about a month later. He'd started feeling comfortable enough to sleep in the same room as her two years ago. He'd let her handle his bow a year and a half ago. He'd started seeing red hair instead of blood in his dreams about three months ago, right after New York…

If things continued progressing the way they were, Clint wasn't sure what he'd do. People like them just didn't rely on each other emotionally. It wasn't the sane thing to do. People like them relied on emotionally stable people for emotional support.

And yet… the fact that someone as strong as Natasha was here, holding onto him like he was as important to her as she was to him… it made him feel safer than he'd ever felt in his life. It made him feel stronger than he could've ever imagined being. It also made him afraid to loose her, and fear of loss was unacceptable in a world where people died every day.

Clint didn't rightly know what was wrong with him, but he was going to fix it. And he wasn't going to let Natasha know either.

* * *

Natasha felt his hands grow harder on her arms and his face tighten. Whatever he was thinking of, he needed to stop. Right now.

"Clint."

He would've flinched if he were someone else.

"Clint, relax."

He chuckled tiredly, his eyes still closed, "I _am_ relaxed. I'm about to fall asleep."

Natasha smiled, "Maybe you should lay down then."

Clint's hands slid away from her, making her feel suddenly cold, and he crawled around her to bury his face in the pillows as Natasha lay on her side next to him, bunching the pillow against her neck. It still amazed her how easy this was, laying in a man's bed without any implications of sex. It amazed her further that Clint didn't even seem to think about it.

Arrogance aside, Natasha knew that she was the epitome of any man's wet dream. It was half of the reason she was so good at espionage in a world dominated by men. And Clint Barton was as red-blooded as any heterosexual man could get. She'd been around him long enough and she'd seen his eyes glow with sexual energy when looking at attractive women…

She'd never actually seen him act on it though.

And he didn't seem at all affected by _her_ either.

She knew better than to feel insulted or challenged though. Knowing him, it probably just hadn't crossed his mind that they could possibly have sex. Natasha wondered what would happen if that topic of conversation was ever brought up…

When the bed stopped creaking from their trying to get comfortable, Clint moaned in content, his eyes fluttering. "If I don't wake up tomorrow, Nat, know that it's all your fault. You and that alcohol," he mumbled roughly.

Natasha internally scoffed at his childish joke, opting to see if he would fall asleep if she was quiet. And sure enough, his breathing became very deep and slow barely even a minute later. The fact that he could sleep around her gave her more pleasure than it should.

She watched him sleeping a little longer before she could close her own eyes and fall asleep herself.


	10. Chapter Ten

PENDULUM ~ WATERCOLOUR

…

**"Hawkeye!" Natasha put her hand to her ear as she ran through the complicated and narrow hallways. She had to get to the lab and get a sample before everything went to shit.**

**Barton sounded somewhere between shocked and worried. _"Natasha? Weren't we supposed to go dark…?"_**

**"Listen to me! I just watched Mnambi infect himself with god-knows-what ten seconds ago! We have to get the hell out of dodge! Now!"**

**The COM link was silent for a moment. _"Copy that. I'll come find you."_**

**"No, you idiot, follow the plan! Rendezvous at the check point!" Natasha slipped into the observation room, catching sight of the chaos in the lab on the other side of the window. Men in lab coats were crowded around a doctor's table, desperately trying to stabilize the thrashing man.**

**Now Barton sounded humorously irritated. _"You'd better be there in three minutes or less, Romanoff, or I'll be coming out there just to strangle you with your own webbing!"_**

**"Promises, promises."**

**_"No one calls Hawkeye an idiot, Black Widow."_**

**Natasha tore her eyes from the scene unfolding before her and hurriedly snatched up a vile of yellowish liquid, stashing it in a protective pouch on her belt. She gave the files on the desk a cursory glance… and then she froze, her heart stopping cold. Frantic, she snatched up a paper and tried to read it more carefully.**

**A deafening roar suddenly shook the floor.**

**Natasha's head whipped around. _No_.**

**_"…what was that?" _Barton's question was slow and apprehensive.**

**Natasha couldn't answer as she watched the body on the table begin to grow… morphing and twisting. Her breathing grew erratic and she clutched at the back of a chair, stumbling.**

**Barton's static-covered voice was panicked in her ear. "_Talk to me, Tasha! What's going on?!"_**

**Chaos broke out in the observation room, bodies and equipment becoming airborne. Something flew through the window, catching her midriff and throwing her against the opposite wall in a snowstorm of glass. Her head cracked against metal and she slumped to the ground, dazed for a second.**

**Adrenaline and irrational fear flooding through her, she tossed the dead scientist off of her and quickly stood, her head spinning.**

**The roar sounded again, louder and more guttural.**

**Natasha turned and ran, half-crashing into the doorjamb in her haste. Confusing, terrifying images were playing with her mind and she couldn't stop them from suffocating every rational thought in her head, her lungs burning and her body quaking.**

**_She didn't know where she was running other than _**_away**.**_

**_She could hear the _**_animalistic** breathing right behind her.**_

**_She could feel the hands _**_scrabbling** at her heels.**_

**_She could see the _**_twisted** forms in the corner of her eye whenever she turned her head.**_

**_._**

**_there was no way to _**_fight_

**_._**

**_there was nowhere to _**_hide_

**.**

**_all she could do was _**_run_

**_._**

**_and run_**

_._

**_and run_**

_._

**_and run_**

**_._**

**_and run_**

**_._**

**_Something caught her arm, nearly yanking it out of her socket when she didn't stop running; she couldn't stop running. A loud _**_sound** was blurting nearby, distorted and frantic, as a pair of **clamps** encircled her upper arms and lifted her running feet off the ground.**_

_She **can't** stop running.** It would **catch up **if she did**._

**_She twisted and thrashed, trying to break the clamps, but they were too _**_flexible** and strong, and then she was being completely **surrounded** by thick bars of iron that **pinned** her against something solid. The sounds were louder now and **vibrated** against her cheek, warm air accompanying it.**_

**_…confused, she froze, her heart in her throat…_**

**_"Na...dash…ada…nga…on…_ goddamn it, Natasha! What's happening?!"**

**It was as if the water in her ears had drained away and she could suddenly understand which way was up again. The world stopped spinning all at once, which made her eyes go unfocused.**

**Breathing as if she'd never get another chance to inhale, she fisted her hands in the front of Barton's uniform like he was a lifeline. She was drenched in cold sweat, her muscles limp and soggy with exhaustion. Her cheeks were wet with hot tears. Monsters kept trying to flood her consciousness, but she stared at the man holding her in his arms, his blue eyes intense enough to ground her.**

**It was either suck it up or go down with the ship, and the Black Widow didn't like water. "I'm ok," she finally breathed, pushing him away. "I'm ok." She wasn't nearly as ok as she should be, but there wasn't much of a choice.**

**"What happened, Natasha?" Barton asked insistently. He looked shaken, watching her face carefully. Looking down, she saw that his forearm was bleeding freely from four, long parallel scratches; she had smudges of red under her nails.**

**No one had ever held her _in spite_ of the pain she caused them…_ stupid thoughts… don't think about that… get away…_**

**"We have to get out of here. Now," she said, trying to ignore everything other than the need to get off this blasted floating laboratory.**

**"I said 'what happened?'" Barton repeated as she turned to jog down the hallway. "What triggered you?"**

**Natasha felt her hackles rise at the word 'trigger,' but she answered him. "Coulson didn't mention that Mnambi had Red Room Intel." She paused at a fork in the hallway, quickly made the decision, and turned.**

**Barton was right behind her. "Ok, but what does that mean?"**

**Natasha swallowed hard, clenching her fists, and finally found the stairs. "Mnambi just injected himself with Red Room-grade muscle-enhancing chemicals. He modified it slightly, but judging by the reaction, it has the same effect as it did for Red Room." _Exactly the same…_**

* * *

**Clint grabbed a hold of her arm and stopped her mid-step, making her look at him. "I've seen you around Red Room spin-offs before Tasha, and they didn't even make you blink." He watched her green eyes go black with fear. "Were you injected, Natasha?" he asked fiercely, his jaw clenched.**

**Natasha swallowed and it looked like she might start crying again. "No. No, it wasn't me," she shook her head. Clint wasn't sure whether that should make him feel better or not.**

**Another bone-rattling roar echoed somewhere nearby. The sounds of destruction he'd noticed before were getting louder.**

**Natasha yanked her arm out of his grasp. "We don't have time for this!" She began running up the stairs again, Clint a half step behind her.**

**_What the hell were they dealing with here?_**

**When they were two floors from the deck, everything began to shake, right down to the light fixtures and handrails. And then a _something_ exploded out of the wall a floor down from their position.**

**Natasha fell forward onto the stairs, a small gasp of panic escaping her.**

**Clint's instincts had him trying to get a glimpse of something so dangerous that it made his dangerous partner panic. He moved to the handrail and leaned over it to look down the stairwell. All he could see was a moving gray _mass_, smashing and crunching and burrowing through everything in its path.**

**The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Was that Mnambi?**

**_Whatever-the-gray-thing-was _suddenly dove into the wall directly under them. The entire boat seemed to shake and then the stairs under Clint's feet detached from the wall. He jumped forward out of harm, landing with his feet on either side of the trembling Natasha.**

**"Get up! Move!" he yelled, grabbing her under her arms and pulling her up.**

**They'd run maybe ten more feet before the world shook again, loosening support beams and walls. Clint saw the careening board flying toward him, but wasn't fast enough to dodge it. It hit his shoulder, throwing him against the stair rail and over it. Everything happened too fast for him to grab anything.**

**Before he could fall very far though, a small hand seized his arm. He instantly twisted to grab the arm attached to that hand. Natasha cried out as she was jerked against the stair railing.**

**Sparks and smoke from destroyed machinery filled the air around them in the ten-story stairwell. Whatever-it-was-that-had-made-the-mess moved further into the ship, the crashing sounds getting slightly quieter. The ship was groaning in distress.**

**Natasha growled low in her throat, a sound of defiance against the obvious pain she had to be in.**

**Clint looked up at his grimacing partner as he swung, suspended from her arm. He could see the ankle she had hooked around an exposed support beam; the bone had nearly broken when she stopped his fall. The pain on her face told him her shoulder had nearly been dislocated as well; at the very least, she'd torn a muscle. With him swinging back and forth like this, she wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.**

**Clint turned his eyes down, a desperate plan forming in his mind. "On 'three,' let go!" he yelled, looking back up at her grimly.**

**Natasha's eyes flickered over to the gigantic hole ripped out of the wall and she nodded; the effort of not letting him fall made it impossible for her to talk.**

**"One," Clint counted, his eyes glued to his intended landing spot. He felt the momentum of the swing, trying to gauge how hard he'd have to push off from Natasha's arm.**

**"Two."**

**He hoped she had enough strength to give him something, _anything_, in the way of trajectory; otherwise, he had an embarrassment of a death lined up. He really would've preferred to go out as something other than a pancake.**

**_"Three!"_**

**Clint dropped. He didn't have nearly enough forward motion to make it. He hit the wall with his toes first, his hands next, and began to slide...**

**His saving grace was the small twisted metal girder sticking out from the lower part of the hole in the wall. His fingers landed on it, instinctively gripping the sharp metal tightly, even though it tore the flesh of his hand to pieces.**

**Grunting with effort, he was able to pull himself up to safety, breathing heavily. He remained sitting for a second, assessing the damage done to his hand. _Shit,_ that hurt!**

**"Barton?" Natasha called from the stairs.**

**"I'm good," he called back, getting to his feet. He couldn't see her. "I'll see if I can find another set of stairs. I'll meet you up top."**

**If Natasha had an answer for Clint, he didn't hear it.**

**One brief flash of heat and flame later, all he could think about was the burning in his eyes.**

**Some kind of freak combination of laboratory chemical emissions and exposed electrical wiring caused the air to combust, unnatural fire swirling like a mini hurricane through the entire room around him.**

**Clint threw his hands to his face, screaming wordlessly as he fell to his knees. He furiously scrubbed at his watering, searing eyes, trying frantically to rid himself of what felt like the acid under his eyelids.**

**It seemed to him like he was suffering for hours; any effort of reducing the pain was done in vain.**

**He knew he needed to fight it though. He needed to open his eyes. His deadly accurate vision was his most valuable asset on the field and with a mutated General Mnambi running around, he'd need it now more than ever. Especially since his partner was nearly handicapped at the thought of the beast.**

**When he finally felt like he might be able to bear it, he tried opening his eyes, slowly peeling his eyelids apart…**

**…and was greeted with complete darkness…**

**"_no."_**

**Clint rubbed his hands over his eyes, squeezing out a few more cleansing tears, and then tried again.**

**Black.**

**"No-no-no. No! This can't be happening. _NO!" _He dropped onto his hands, scrabbling around for… anything… _something_… he didn't know… But he knew deep down that there wasn't anything that could fix this…**

**Gravity started to spin.**

**The floor felt ethereal, fake.**

**The air felt too big to fit into his lungs.**

**.**

**_His eyes were gone._**

**_._**

**_He was blind._**

**.**

**And now Hawkeye was _dead_. Hawkeye was _gone_ and all he had now was Clinton Barton. The orphaned circus-freak with enormous, heavily repressed baggage.**

**Through his crumbling sanity, he heard running footsteps coming toward him.**

**In a flash, he'd nocked an arrow and aimed it at whoever it was. He'd been hitting bull's-eyes without looking since he was eight; he could still hit a target when he was blind… right?**

**The footsteps came to a crunching halt. "…Barton…?" He recognized the voice.**

**"Tasha," he lowered his bow.**

**He heard her step forward hesitantly.**

**"Tasha… I can't see," he admitted into the dark, and the solidity of those words seemed to dislodge his brain, his sanity fleeing it's ruined cage.**

**"Oh, God… I can't_… see…"_**

**And with that, he was broken. Despair made rational thoughts impossible and the only things in his mind were self-hatred and misery. He fell forward, barely catching himself on his hands as he urgently tried to keep breathing.**

**_He was useless._**

**Natasha was trying to tell him something, her voice coming from right above his head. A part of him knew he should be listening, but it was being suffocated by the other, less sane part of him.**

**_Clint Barton was useless._**

**Strong, delicate hands grabbed his burnt shoulders and roughly pulled him to a sitting position. She was shaking him and trying to talk to him, but it wasn't working. Nothing penetrated the cloud of senselessness around him.**

**_BAM!_**

**Pain exploded across his jaw and suddenly, English was making sense again.**

**"_Think, you bastard! _We have to get out of here _now_!" she was yelling, shaking him by the front of his burnt-smelling uniform.**

**"Wait, alright!" Clint gasped, holding his hands up in surrender. "_Alright_!" His heart seemed like it was made of stones though, grating painfully in his chest with every pump. _He was useless._**

**Natasha stopped shaking him, taking his face in her hands. He could feel her breath on his skin. "Clint."**

**Clint froze, unsure what the hell he was supposed to think about this, not entirely sure that he wasn't hallucinating.**

**Her hands were tense but gentle on his face. "Listen to me… When we get back to headquarters, I swearthat I _will not rest_ until you get your eyes back. You'll get your eyes back. _I swear on my_ _life_."**

**Clint didn't know how he was still breathing.**

**"But first, we have to get out of here, alive," she continued, back to her I-take-no-bullshit tone. "Come on, give me your arm." She lifted one of his arms and put it over her shoulders, winding her own arm around his waist and heaving him to his feet.**

**One thing was for sure; Clint Barton was lucky to have Natasha Romanoff as an ally right now, blind circus-freak that he was.**

**It was hard to trust Natasha to be his eyes, especially when they were going at the speeds they were; he kept tripping and he never expected it when she changed directions. He missed his eyes. He tried not to complain though, because he knew she had her own shit to deal with.**

**Natasha stopped suddenly.**

**"What is it?" he asked, drawing his gun with his undamaged hand and holding it ready.**

**Natasha's hands quickly grabbed it from him. "_Are you fucking crazy, Barton?!_"**

**Clint frowned, "I've been shooting targets without a single look for years now, Natasha. I think I can hit one directly in front of me even though I can't see it."**

**"That's what I'm afraid of!"**

**"You think I can't distinguish between a fat-assed mutant and a skinny-assed girl like you just because I'm blind?"**

**Natasha stiffened slightly against his side. Clint couldn't be sure if this was a reaction to something he said or to something that he _couldn't fucking see_.**

**Damn, he missed his eyes. He was absolutely useless without them… _don't think about it…_**

**"What are we doing?" he asked impatiently when they still weren't moving.**

**He felt Natasha huff indecisively and then whisper tensely, "Following my plan."**

**Clint waited for her to continue. When she didn't, he asked, "And…?"**

**"We're staying out of sight," Natasha snapped.**

**At the tail end of her statement, a particularly threatening roar shook the boat and Natasha was suddenly moving backwards, dragging Clint with her. He felt a doorjamb clip his shoulder as they entered a room.**

**"Romanoff, you need to calm down…" he started to say and then his feet were swept out from under him and he landed hard on his back. At first, he didn't notice the cold, sharp edge pressed against his throat.**

**"If you think I'm above killing a man who can't see it coming, you're in for a fucking surprise," she growled from somewhere above him.**

**_"Then why haven't you done it yet?!" _Clint suddenly exploded, mindlessly yelling. "_Goddamn it! Why are you still here?! Just …"_**

**BAM!**

**Pain blossomed over his other cheek now, matching bruises.**

**"_Son of a…" _he hissed, pushing her away from him as best he could without knowing exactly where she was. Truly, he was glad that she'd stopped him from going hysterical again… lashing out at anything he could attribute his panic to… He just wished she wasn't so accurate a puncher.**

**"Do you want to talk about your feelings, Hawkeye, or get out of here?" Natasha didn't give him the chance to answer, yanking him to his feet again.**


End file.
